I don't want to bore any of you with the details of our torrid love affair, the wild nights spent on the beach just outside of our rented apartment, or the hand job I received from two sisters at a party ten miles out of town that we were taken to by a random car full of people who drove by and asked us if we wanted to go with them in exchange for 100 pesos to buy drugs, but I would like to relate my experience on the only pool table in the entire town:

We stumbled drunkenly across the bridge to the part of town that was not plagued by surf shops and restaurants owned by old English couples and I saw it there plain as day--a seven-foot Valley table in perfect condition peeking out from inside a charmingly small open air bar. I demanded that we play a game since it was the only table I had seen in the entire town, so in we went. She didn't really play much pool, but she was not one of those bores who refuses to play because she doesn't want to be embarrased.

I speak the worst tourist Spanish and for the entire trip I had relied on my more fearless companion to do all of the awkward Spanglish bantering in order to secure what we wanted. But neither of us knew the words for 'pool' or 'play', and I was shy about sounding like a fool when asking to get in on the next game. Of course, the only people at the table weren't even Mexican and spoke English well enough. I'll admit I was a little disappointed, but hey, if I want to go play a game with people who speak only Spanish I'd just go to San Loco on North 4th.

They were more casual about the game than I'm used to. We played an odd version of team play (three versus two) with slop allowed. They asked me if I played ball-in-hand and I gave them a firm response in the negative. Ball-in-hand is a bad rule for bar pool, in my opinion. If it was possible to replace balls on the table after a foul shot, then maybe ball-in-hand would be fair.

Of course the game took forever. The other foreigners, middle-aged with the disposition of rowdy teenagers, were a few more Pacificos into the night than we were. They were starting to get obnoxious. My partner and I played valiantly, and at the end I had put down the 8 ball in a relatively easy shot, but of course the cue ball managed to squirrel its way slowly into the opposite side pocket. Go figure.