The Cockroach Can't Walk Because He Has No Weed to Smoke

If you speak Spanish like I do you will instantly recognize the words to the famous Mexican song "La Cucaracha" in the subject of this rant. You will also be hip to the fact that I consider the Italians to be thoroughly roasted now, and even though I promised you an aromatic French Roast I'm afraid I have to take a quick detour "South of the Border" first. Don't worry, it will be worth the wait, I promise.

The Mexicans are a people with a rich heritage they inherited from the Spanish the way we poor Yankees inherited ours from the British. That explains part of why they can be so "loco en la cabeca", but not all by any means. Many Mexicans don't sport a Spanish heritage at all, but a Mayan heritage that goes back thousands of years. Let me see - the Spanish were a wandering gang of greedy thugs in search of gold in the New World, spreading disease and wiping out entire civilizations in their wake. The Mayans were a highly advanced people that clearly communicated with aliens if you really understand their calendar. So the average Pedro and Maria is a mixture of the two - get it?

When I got out of high school I fled the United States and took off like a 1970s version of Tom Sawyer south of the Border for a three-month adventure with my Huckleberry friend named Gary Adams. I wasn't consciously tempting fate, even though the number of times I crossed paths with the Angel of Death during those three months would later come back to haunt me in my nightmares. Overall it was great, though - converting $800 to Pesos at the time made us overnight millionaires down there. In spite of our sudden wealth we chose to take humble forms of transportation for the most part, like buses, trains and horse drawn carts (which still exist in the smaller villages believe it or not).

Once we were robbed by a roving gang of policemen in Mexico City. They didn't beat us up or take our clothes like the federal police do, thank God. In fact they were quite friendly and tried to speak English while they were busy stealing my wallet. It was a well rehearsed con game that required all of them to play a role in the act. When I realized what had happened, my friend Huckleberry Adams went running after them screaming at the top of his lungs! I cringed when he did it because there would have been no witnesses to our murder and disappearance at that time of night. But as luck and fate would have it, they dumped the contents of my wallet on the grass and took off!

Oh my gosh, here it is Paragraph Five already and I've barely gotten started on my Mexican Rant Grill! I've got tons more ingredients to heap on the flames than I ever did for the Italians. I almost wish I hadn't started down this path because there is so much to cover, but it's too late now. The cockroach couldn't walk because he had no marijuana to smoke, and I can't type because I haven't started the coffee pot yet. Hasta luego, muchacho or muchacha, whatever the case may be!