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Humor March 2015

The Grumpy Old Man

Grumpy Monkeys Around And Ends Up Hanging By A Thread

By Donald Rizzo

The first day we checked out the Panama Canal. I was right – a muddy ditch with huge freighters that barely fit as they move at a snail's pace. Watching one go through the first lock was quite interesting. The second one was not.

It's time for the obligatory winter vacation – an escape from my permanent retirement vacation. A friendly couple invited us to join them on a trip to Panama. Panama? My vision of Panama was huge freighters stacked with containers of Chinese knock-offs and smuggled drugs squeezing through a narrow ditch filled with muddy water inhabited by piranhas and crocodiles.

But, always up for another way to torture myself, I hit the Internet and found out that Panama is the next hot spot for extracting dollars from gringos.

Sign me up!

When I go on vacation, I like to blend in and remain inconspicuous; it's safer – and cheaper. Panamanians tend to be short and swarthy, like me. However, the male half of our traveling couple is a 6-foot, 11-inch, 260-pound redhead. Many years ago he played offensive tackle for Georgia Tech and then the Green Bay Packers. So much for blending in with the population. Off we flew, safe in the knowledge that my giant friend, Carl, would be running interference. We got used to people stopping in their tracks, and pointing incredulously at Mutt and Jeff.

Vacations are a lot like being a pilot – hours of boredom interspersed with occasional terrifying moments. This trip had its share of both. The terror part began when our driver entered the Panama City flow of traffic. Panamanian drivers make Atlantans look like polite little angels behind the wheel. By the time we got to the hotel I was curled up on the rear floorboards in the fetal position.

The first day we checked out the Panama Canal. I was right – a muddy ditch with huge freighters that barely fit as they move at a snail's pace. Watching one go through the first lock was quite interesting. The second one was not. I hope the 22,000 guys who died building the Canal think it was worth it.

Panama City is surrounded by a lot of dense jungle. We took a small boat to look for monkeys and to visit a settlement of native Embera people who purportedly live pretty much as they did centuries ago in the jungles. The boat pulled into a small cove and the "captain" put some orange slices on the bow.

Suddenly a monkey the size of a small gorilla swung out of the trees and dove onto the bow of the boat a few feet from where we were seated. My lovely wife, who always has my best interest at heart, leaped behind me and shoved me as hard as she could toward the crazed apelet almost capsizing us. I assumed she wanted to get a better view, so I tried valiantly to lurch behind her to give her a better view. We basically wrestled each other to the bottom of the boat, each trying to get behind the other. The monkey snatched Diane's purse. I screwed up my courage and snatched it back. Meanwhile our friends and the boat captain were laughing hysterically. I'm still not sure what was so darn funny about that monkey. The visit to the native village was depressing. They call it living with nature. I call it poverty.

A couple of days later we flew to Boquete, in the western mountains of Panama and stayed at a "coffee plantation." The highlight there was a zipline adventure. That's a deal where they hang you from a thin wire strung along the tree tops using some frayed canvas strips. Then they give you a mighty shove in the hope that everything stays together until you reach the next platform. You're supposed to get a bird’s eye view of the forest. I didn't see anything. Either I had my eyes tightly closed to avoid throwing up or I was hanging upside down staring at the sky. The nicest part of that was the relief I felt when it was over.

We got hopelessly lost going from the coffee farm to the airport, but made the flight with 30 seconds to spare, totally destroying my sense of joy at not being hung on a zip line. When we got to Atlanta it was dismal and raining but it looked like a beautiful day to me when I stepped off the plane. On the drive home only one or two guys cut me off and shot me a bird. Welcome home.

 

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