Last weekend, my family and I enjoyed an extravagant 3-hour vacation in Tijuana. And why not, I have the money ($7.00) to do that sort of thing. For the unfamiliar, Tijuana is a secret exotic city with beautiful flowing waterfalls and similar. Hiding meekly in the back alleys are street vendors who have never seen Americans before. These individuals can be coerced into selling their valuable mexican jumping beans if you know what you're doing.

However, not all haggling scenarios on this adventure went as planned. One such scenario was a team-haggle effort with my eldest nephew. Let's call him Trevor, since that's his name. His goal was to buy some really crappy tiny carved forest animals, on purpose. Even so, he didn't want to spend a bundle, because he's not on my financial level. Understandably then, we couldn't be asked to pay whatever the original price was, even if that price was a cup full of crusty pigeon splatter. It's the principle of the thing. Without a moment's delay, I engaged the unnamed seller of trinkets with my time-tested negotiation techniques.

Me: How much? A dollar? That's ridiculous, how could I ever spend a dollar for something like that when I can spend a dollar for a bus ride to downtown San Diego. Ridiculous. At least with the bus ride, I'm somewhere else. If I buy this animal, I'm pretty sure I'm still going to be standing here. No, my price is 5 for 2 dollars.

Vendor: 1 dollar each.

Me: Frustrating! Honestly, these things are so crappy i'm shocked the mexican police don't confiscate them on a daily basis!

Ok, I didn't say that. Being the shrewd entrepreneurs that we are, my nephew and I just went next door and purchased the poorly-crafted animals for our asking price. Quite simple really, if you've taken a few business courses (Call Chico State and ask them for my transcripts if you want to play it that way).

After we left, I informed the original salesman of his great error, and our subsequent great gain. His response was "Ooh, lucky you!" That's attitude I don't need right there. I'm never going back to that particular cardboard table again, please believe me when I say that.

After the business lesson I gave my nephew, I was in the mood for some learning of my own, which is difficult due to the length and breadth of my knowledge stores. Nevertheless, my brothers speak pretty nice Spanish, yippee for them. By contrast, my Spanish sounds more as if someone threw a Spanish I text book at me and then the book flapped open for a second as it flew by, allowing me to see one or two of the Spanish words inside. Although this experience was key in my Spanish-speaking development, I still feel like I need more learning. My desire for knowledge is insatiable, as if that wasn't obvious.

Naturally then, I enjoy standing on the immediate periphery of my brothers' personal space as they converse with various mexican citizenry. In this way I attempt to interject random words that could possibly be Spanish, and may even be related to their conversation. Here, let me show you how it goes.

Rob: (in Spanish, to vendor) I don't really want to buy these mexican jumping beans, but since my younger brother is hovering over me like a huge human mosquito, i'm going to get this over with and buy some. He's 32, but he still hovers!

Erik: (in English) 32 dollars, what?? Or pesos, did you say pesos? How do I say "that's too much?" Amigo, my brother is "estupido", if you know what that means, and you should, because I saw it in a Spanish I text book. I will give you 25 dollars for 6 mexican jumping beans, final offer.

Vendor: (to Rob) Is this guy serious?

Rob: I think so.

Erik: No, I know so. Here, the deal is done and you can mark it down in your accounting logs, which I doubt you even have.

Vendor: Tonight I eat filet mignon off the bellies of prostitutes!

As we made our way home, I couldn't figure how this man's strange sexual appetite was connected to my pulling the wool over his eyes. Finally, I came to the conclusion that it was unrelated.

Ahh...Tijuana. You have my heart, and I have your mexican jumping beans.