Mexico Medical Student |

We had an interesting show today in downtown Guadalajara. We have been futilely trying to find a 220V transformer to change our apartment’s 110V electricity for our electric washer/dryer. Like stupid Americans, we thought when a laundry room is available, it has the funky plugs or at the very least, can be retrofitted with them easily. Wrong. We have 20A for the whole apartment, so the A/C microwave and toaster all going together with the normal lights and appliances (such as the kitchen fridge) trips our single breaker.

So we went to the place where we’ve consistently been told we can find such things–El Centro. Following the map based on the street corner to find this place, it was clear that navigating the backstreets of downtown was like getting your toenails pulled by a rusty pair of pliers. You are driving along streets that used to be for horse carriages (in fact, you pass them along the way) and two buses literally vie for street space where one barely fits.

I stopped at a corner to walk to the destination with Claudia waiting in the truck, and of course, they don’t have it. Upon returning some 5 minutes later, she’s freaking out when I get in saying “Look! Look at that guy!”
“What guy?”
“That guy!” she points to a barely conscious guy ambling towards our truck, eyes glazed. “He was huffing and fighting over a rag with this hooker!”
“No f**ing way,” I said. At that point, he produced a rag, poured liquid out of a soda can, and began huffing, even sucking the solvent (or whatever it was) out of the rag. No sooner than I could think, “Crap! Where’s my vidcam!” the police came (a vidcam would be bad at this point). He started moving towards us, probably thinking I’ll shield him or “legitimize” him somehow. The cop came, grabbed him, pulled him over to the dumpster that was obviously his home (or storage warehouse) and started cuffing him. In the process of cuffing him, his pants started falling, revealing the fact he had no underwear (probably was the rag he was using).

A woman in high heels came to start talking to the cop, and I asked excitedly, “Was that the hooker?!” No, it was the woman who evidently called the cops on freballin’ huffer man. I guess he took the last of her paint thinner.