Unsure Footing

In her email she wrote, “I got your airfare / hotel covered, you just have to meet me in Buenos Aires. No camping, we’re staying at hotels and picking out what tours (I want to do the glacier hiking) to do . . . . What do you think?”

“HELLS YES!” was my reply and my heart lept for joy.

I’ve always wanted to be a kept man - I just could never make a serious go at it because I don’t have the necessary physique or amount of finely groomed chest hair to spend days tanning poolside in a speedo and a gold chain. This was my big chance. Doctor Dinero went ahead and charged our tours, our plane flights and our accommodations all on her credit card. All I had to do was show up and not say or do anything that would get me ejected from her good graces.

When I arrived at the designated hotel I was presented with a refreshing glass of freshly squeezed juice and a mint at the front desk. A man in a smartly pressed uniform insisted on carrying my backpack up to the room and explained where the indoor pool and day spa was located.

It was official, Boxcar Kaye had just been upgraded to first class.

It was a week of guidebook highlights for us: we cramponned across the nape of the Perito Moreno glacier, got soaked in a speed boat beneath the falls of Iguazu, wandered around the streets of Buenos Aires from La Caminata in Boca to the antique shops of San Telmo and the tombs of Recolleta Cemetery.

Lest you get the wrong impression about Doctor Dinero, she is not some snobby stuffed shirt who likes to throw money around, just a down to earth chick with a good job and an uncommonly generous attitude towards those without. What this amounted to was high maintenance travel with a low maintenance woman - simply put - the best of both worlds. We ate at upscale restaurants all the while poking fun at the fact that the chairs with their fancy seat covers were better dressed than we were in our tank tops and flip flops. I behaved in my normal fashion, which is to say atrociously, but instead of slapping me or hiding her face behind her embroidered napkin in shame she was laughing along. And just check out the present she brought me when she came down:

Amazing.

Now, lest you get the wrong impression about me, I was entirely comfortable in my role of the unabashed freeloader. Oh sure I made a few mock attempts to level the “paying field” where I could, but these were symbolic more than substantive. “Oh please, allow me” I would loudly announce as I picked up the tab at an internet cafe, waving away her 2 pesos with a chivalrous sweep of my open hand. Or, “Don’t worry about it, I got you covered,” with a wink as I paid for a bottle of water at a bodega. I was feeling so at ease with the whole arrangement that at one point after she purchased a tour on her credit card I almost stepped forward to sign my own name to the bill.

If there is any complaint to lodge against Doctor Dinero it’s only that her photo-taking ability is seriously impaired.

For example:

And don’t I look great here:

And of course this one is going right into the family album:

g
Oh and she also has no sense of direction, which is more amusing than nettlesome. She went for a short stroll in El Calafate, a town with a population of around 8000, and showed up 5 hours later, having walked all the way to a nature reserve outside of town situated in the exact opposite direction of our hotel. She is the kind of person who has to ask for directions on the way from the bed to the bathroom. She gets lost moving from one side of the jacuzzi to the other. She needs a compass to apply ketchup to her fries. You get the point.

One night the heat of Puerto Iguazu was sapping all of our energy, so we fetched some pizza and the cheapest whisky available (a brand called Old Smuggler) and brought it back to the hotel room for dinner in.

Flipping through the cable channels I stumbled upon Predator, the classic Schwarzenegger flick. I looked over at Doctor Dinero.

“You don’t mind if we watch this, do you?” I asked.

“You don’t hear me complaining, do you?” she answered.

What a great night! Pizza, whisky, fresh linens and gratuitous violence. What more could a man ask for?

The only downside was that Doctor Dinero is the type of person who asks questions during movies instead of watching and figuring out the answers for herself. We did miss the first 10 minutes or so, but come on is it really that hard to puzzle the plot-line of a shoot-em-up?

I kept my responses curt and nebulous, hoping to dissuade future questions:

Because men respect a worthy adversary.

Because men prefer to use excessive firepower.

Because men will always try to self-destruct if they can take out a sworn enemy with them.

Eventually I tuned her out and just answered every question with, “It’s what real men do.”

Hey, why are they shooting those people?
It’s what real men do.
OK.

I don’t understand why he cut himself with that knife.
It’s what real men do.
OK.

So what, this alien is trying to kill them all?
It’s what real men do.
Yeah but it’s an alien, not a man.
It’s what real alien males do.
Hmmm. OK.