Don't Ring, Just Bark

So, Paul and I have our dogs down here: Two Blue Heelers and a 16 year old miniature Dachshund. Any of you who are dog people know that when you are planning a trip, you spend as much time trying to make sure your dogs have proper care as you do actually planning the trip. With that in mind, we are going to be taking a couple of vacations from our vacation (now THAT'S luxury!) in the next few months, and can't take our dogs with us. Therefore, we have to find a place for them. Hence, today's topic.

We found, through reference, a place in a nearby town (Lo de Marcos, 1-1/2 hours away), called Beach Dog Spa. But, before we booked our dogs into it, we wanted to check it out. Thinking that as long as we're that far along the road towards Puerto Vallarta, we might as well combine the trips, and get some shopping done first in PV, then check out the kennel on the way back. We left our house in Platanitos at 8 in the morning, heading to Home Depot first, then WalMart on the way back. It's about a half-hour drive from WalMart to Lo de Marcos, and we got directions to the kennel from their web site. But, since we don't have a printer in our casita, we sent the directions to our British neighbor, Richard, to print out for us.

When we were leaving, we went to their house to get the directions, and found Richard furiously writing them down by hand on a piece of notebook paper. "What are you doing? Why don't you just print them out?" "Well," he says, in his British accent, "I think there's something wrong with the format of the message and it won't print, so I'm writing them for you." It's a whole page. Off we go.

As we are wrapping things up at WalMart, we realize that we are going to be maybe 15 minutes late for our 1 p.m. appointment at the dog place, as it's showing 12:45 on the Suburban dash clock. Even though we strive to be on time, for once we think, "Hey, this is México; EVERYONE is late down here. ¡No problema!" We get to Lo de Marcos and start following the very detailed, but rather vague, directions through town: "About 2 or 3 streets before you get to the beach, turn left on Calle Hidalgo, which is not marked." Right. We immediately find our progress blocked by a restaurant that's decided to spill out into the street with tables and chairs, and we have to find a detour, which we seem to be able to do. Turn left at the ponds, turn right at the corner, and on and on through this tiny, twisted old town. Finally, we find the kennel. I read the last of the directions:

"When you pull up, don't ring the door bell, just stand out front and bark, and we'll be right out." Paul asked me to read it again. He said "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" So, he got out of the car, and started hollering "Hellooo! Hellooo!" over the 10-foot concrete block wall. No response at all. We had the kennel's phone number, so we called it and told the lady we were out front, but didn't know how to get in. There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Paul told her that we followed the directions and didn't ring the bell, and just hollered over the wall. She said, "What are you talking about?" Paul said, "Well, those are the specific instructions from your web site." "I have no idea what you are talking about." Paul: "Look, it's your web site; I just reading what it says." I can tell he's getting hot under the collar. "Fine," the lady says, "I'll be right out."

Once she came out, I went in with her to see the place, leaving Paul and the dogs in the car outside. The place is immaculate, clearly very well run, and an obvious good choice to leave our dogs. But, then the lady said to me, "Hey, I'm sorry I was a little short with you; I should have scheduled your visit when I didn't have so much going on. I was expecting you at one o'clock." I said, "Well, it's only 1:15." She said, "Actually, it's 2:15; we're on Puerto Vallarta time, an hour ahead of the time in Platanitos." YIKES!! We totally did not know that a recent decision by the minister of tourism (or somebody) moved the boundary of the time change from the state border just west of Puerto Vallarta to just west of Lo de Marcos, a few months ago. So, we were more than an hour late. And, then she said, "So, what is this 'just bark out front' thing your husband was jabbering about? ". That's when it started to dawn on me.

I thanked the lady, and left. When I got back in the car, Paul was still fuming, and said "Well, she better have a damn nice place, because I'm ready to kick this b**** to the curb." I explained that it was us who were chronically late, and that it was starting to look like our little friend Richard may have been having a little sport with us.

When we got back, we went to Richard directly. He asked "So, how was the dog place?" I said that it was fine, except for one little thing, the part about "no bell, just bark". He roared with laughter, and said, "Yeah, that was my bit; I never thought you'd believe it for a minute." What a wanker...