Steve Glickman - Feliz Navidad

 

It's Christmas Eve in 2005 and I am packed and ready to go to Puerto Vallarta. My flight leaves in 12 hours and I cannot wait to get out of Chicago. It's been an awful year. I broke up with my boyfriend of seven years and I've been living in a fog. Months of therapy, sleepless nights. Just the worst year ever. But somehow, I made it to Christmas Eve, and I am ready to reboot my life, starting now. I cannot wait to get to that beautiful beach in Puerto Vallarta and order a piña colada served out of a coconut [audience chuckles] and kiss this awful year goodbye.

 

I'm packed and ready to go. All I need is my passport. I look in my desk drawer. Not there. I look in my file cabinet. Not there. I look in my bedroom closet, my dresser, the kitchen cabinets. Not there. Where the fuck is my passport? Then I panic. I ransack my apartment, going from room to room, emptying every drawer, every closet, every cabinet, and I throw its contents on the floor where I can see it all clearly. I get down on my hands and knees and I'm sifting through the piles of stuff like a crazed burglar. And after I've turned my apartment upside down for hours. Nothing. Where the fuck is my passport?

 

It's after midnight and I'm exhausted, sitting on my bedroom floor, staring at all the piles of junk. I say to myself out loud, as calmly as possible, "I've lost my passport. I've looked everywhere I know of, but it's gone. [audience chuckles] I am not going to Puerto Vallarta for Christmas." And then I cry. The next morning, I make a pot of coffee and I contemplate how I might spend Christmas week in Chicago. [audience chuckles] I can't visit my family. They're not in town. I can't visit my friends because they all think I'm in Puerto Vallarta, and that's what I want them to think. [audience chuckles] I boasted to everyone that I was going to spend Christmas week on the beach in Mexico, and they could all have their white Christmas in Chicago. I told my coworkers. I told my volleyball team. I told George, the star hitter on my volleyball team, [audience chuckles] who is a dreamboat and who I have a crush on.

 

I can't fathom telling them I lost my passport. [audience chuckles] I will never hear the end of it. I feel like the biggest loser ever. I just can't catch a break. And then I get an idea. I hide out in my apartment all week long. [audience chuckles] I spend my time watching movies and reading Mexico travel blogs. [audience chuckles] When I leave the apartment, I wear sunglasses and a hoodie because I'm incognito. [audience laughter] And I leave for only two reasons. To go to the grocery store or to the tanning salon. [audience laughter] I love the tanning salon. I love lying on the tanning bed in my Speedo, grooving to my playlist, surrounded by the gentle warmth and humming of the UV lights as they slowly cook my skin to a deep golden brown. [audience chuckles] And when I close my eyes, it feels just like I'm lying on that beautiful beach in Puerto Vallarta. [audience chuckles] 

 

The first week in January, we have volleyball practice and I show up at the gym armed with a deep tan and stories from the Mexico travel blogs. [audience laughter] I scan the gym for my team, and then I spot dreamboat George. I'm nervous, and part of me wants to walk out of that gym and go back into hiding for the rest of winter. But I know that won't solve anything. I know I have to get out there and live in the world, meet people and take risks, even if I don't feel like it. That's what all the self-help books say. [audience laughter] And so I walk up to dreamboat George with a smile on my face. And he smiles right back. And he says, "So how was Puerto Vallarta?" I say, "Muy bueno. [audience laughter] The weather was perfect, the beaches were fantastic, and oh, the food. So, mucho delicioso." [audience laughter]

 

As I'm talking, I'm thinking, “Is he buying this bullshit?” [audience chuckles] I study his face for signs of doubt, and I can't really be sure, but I think he might be. My other teammates gather around and I tell them the same story. And every time I tell it, I get more confident and I add more details, like a snorkeling trip and a sunset cruise. Suddenly I realize I'm actually pretty good at this. [audience chuckles] Dreamboat George says, "I'm so jealous," which are the words I long to hear. I simply smile and nod. I sat on this secret for 11 years. [audience laughter] Over time, I got my confidence back. I got a new boyfriend. And we've traveled a bit, but never to Puerto Vallarta because I don't like to repeat. [audience laughter] So, last December, I was cleaning out my bedroom closet and I reach in and I pull out a ratty old jacket. And just as I'm throwing it in the trash, I feel something hard in the breast pocket. So, I reach in and I pull out my fucking passport. [laughter]