The All-You-Can-Eat Buffet (or Hunting and Gathering for the Modern Age)

I miss Mexico. It’s not that I don’t like the endless series of rainy Pacific Northwest days, but there’s something to be said for 80 degrees and sun in the middle of winter. The one thing I don’t miss about our Mexican resort is the all-you-can-eat buffet. The buffet was fine the first few times, but the endless supply of pasta and deserts got old after awhile. Literally. Additionally, my digestive system quickly grew tired of the truckloads of food I was forcing into it. When people, myself included, are offered an infinite amount of food, the results are disastrous.

Even the most civilized, law abiding citizen will turn into a hunger-ravaged Viking who just raped and pillaged his way to his first meal in a week. He roams up and down the various buffet lines, foaming at the mouth, impatiently waiting in line for a piece of fish or a burrito. When he sees that the pasta he’d craved earlier is almost gone, you see the anger flashing in his eyes. The wise thing would be to let him ahead of you in the ice cream line, but the animal in you wants to go ahead and fill two dishes of chocolate-vanilla swirl.

Things aren’t too pleasant in the dining room either. Tables of people are busy ripping and tearing into their meals. Something about the buffet brings out our inner-caveman: everyone eats as if they may not get to again for a very long time. But, they will, probably in just a few hours at this very same buffet.

I’ve never worked in the restaurant industry, so I don’t know what carnage is left after the feasting is over. I imagine there is much waste, and much stored and set out again the next day. I also imagine there is some resentment towards us, as we consume and throw out more food in one meal than many people do in an entire week – or longer. Buffets serve their purpose: on cruise ships, weddings, resorts, Pizza Hut, but I think there’s only so much buffet my waistline – and conscience – can take.

Ocean of Fury

I walked across the white, smooth sand into the clear water. Although initially cold, my feet quickly acclimated to the Caribbean waters. I waded slowly, trying my best to avoid the rocks and pieces of sharp shells littered on the sea’s bottom. When the water reached my waist I decided to take the plunge and dive in. The temperature of the water took my breath away, but I adjusted surprisingly quickly.

I swam out to the rock my parents were sitting on. Fortunately the rock was close to the beach, as my swimming form was rather pathetic due to lack of practice. I swam like a Labrador Retriever – an old, injured one. With the help of a wave, they pulled me onto the rock. The ocean effortlessly washed me off.

Later I swam past the rock – to the point where my feet could no longer touch the sandy floor. I was exhilarated, challenging the waves and the fury of the ocean. I mocked the ocean’s attempt to knock me over. The ocean responded with fury. The sea pulled me in and spit me out, as if it were winning and then losing a game of tug-of-war with the land. I sucked and breathed in salt water. It was wretched. I gasped and coughed. The ocean mocked my attempt to gain my composure. I finally did and I swam back to where I could touch the bottom. I would go out no further.

Don’t Forget Your Towel (Card)

I’ve been in Akumal, Mexico for the past week or so at an all-inclusive resort with my immediate family. Resorts are unique places. Those, like the one I stayed at in Mexico, offer this alternate universe inside an otherwise poverty-stricken area. Inside its walls its often Western guests swim and play and dine while on the outside the people who call the area home live off of a minimum wage of roughly $4 a day (according to our tour guide). Tourism obviously provides revenue for areas like the Rivera Maya, but its hard to ignore the irony of these two worlds and the relationship between the people in them. I think this was best exemplified in an encounter I witnessed between an employee of the resort and a guest:

This particular resort provides its guests with beach towels. Specifically, it provides its guests with one beach towel each. Each guest is provided a card and each card can then be exchanged for a towel at any of the little towel kiosks stationed around the resort. It’s a pretty simple concept: 1 towel card = 1 towel. Anyway, each of the kiosks is manned by an employee who takes the cards and gives out towels. Again, simple.

My mom and I were waiting at a kiosk one morning to pick up a fresh set of towels, behind an American or Canadian family of five who were also picking up towels. This family had apparently just arrived and did not yet understand the complexities of the resort towel exchange system. The young Mexican employee who had the unfortunate luck to be on towel duty that morning was trying to explain the “one card = one towel policy” to the family but they just didn’t understand. The father, middled-aged, balding and with an hard-to-miss chip on his shoulder, grew increasingly angry when the “towel boy” refused to bend the rules for him and his family. I could tell they were related because they all shared the same undeniable chip on their shoulders.

“We have five people, but they only gave us four cards. Give us another towel,” the father demanded.
“One card = one towel,” the poor kid tried to explain.
“WE ARE CINCO PERSONAS. GIVE US ANOTHER TOWEL!” again demanded the father, holding up five fingers and showing off his Spanish skills.
“One card = one towel. Go to the front desk,” the poor kid said, pointing to the lobby.
“WE ARE CINCO! CALL THE FRONT DESK. TELL THEM WE NEED ANOTHER TOWEL.”

At this point the mother and three children were doing their part to help their father in his attempt to be the biggest Ass at the pool that day. “We’re CINCO!”

Meanwhile, my mom and I stood there, feeling like asses in our own right for not standing up for the poor resort employee whose only crimes were coming to work that day and following his employer’s policies. The family finally just gave up and walked away, no doubt their day of relaxing at a five-star resort in a tropical paradise ruined. The towel boy gave us our towels and we walked away, swiftly kicking ourselves for not helping him out against the unruly guests.

I’m not in Akumal anymore, but I’m sure that inside its resorts the guests are relaxing and enjoying their holidays. I wonder more what the people who wait on them are doing.