The Goddamn Yankees

Granada, Nicaragua

During the first decade of the 21st century, the New York Yankees eliminated the Minnesota Twins from the playoffs four separate times. I drank until I blacked out on these occasions. It became something of a tradition.

It had been 7 years, but this year I was able to bring the tradition back. I was the sole guest in the sole dorm room of a hotel in Granada, Nicaragua. The hotel had 3 bars and many other guests, but I guess they were all paying for individual rooms. I had the 8-bed air-conditioned dorm room all to myself.

For the Twins-Yankees wildcard playoff game I ordered a glass of wine and sat down at a table with my laptop. The game started off phenomenally, with the Twins scoring twice in the first inning and knocking out the Yankees starting pitcher. But the Yankees came back in the bottom of the inning and scored three times themselves. At which point I ordered a full bottle of wine.

Hotel employees stopped by to watch bits and pieces of the game with me. For some reason they were Red Sox fans. So we all rooted against the Yankees. Unfortunately the Yankees took the lead in the 2nd inning and never looked back. The game became a battle of the bullpens, and the Yankees bullpen dominated.

After the game I took a seat at the bar and struck up a conversation with a couple ladies. I remember trying to convince them to refer to the Yankees as the "Goddamn Yankees," which seemed really clever to me because it referred to a musical and I hated the Yankees. I don't remember much after that.

*

I have another tradition, which is to embark on ambitious projects in the wake of self-destructive episodes. In this case I was so deathly ill with a hangover that I downloaded a book on a language recognition technology and decided to teach Pan, the troll on my website, some basic grammar. I set up my computer at a table in the hotel lobby and proceeded to drink coffee and read.

Throughout the day, people walked passed me and greeted me by name. Which was odd, since I didn't immediately recognize them. But memories started filtering back to me. I apparently hadn't stayed at the lobby bar after the Twins lost.

I had spent a good chunk of time debating cloud security with a Costa Rican guy who desperately wanted into my pants. In the light of day he encouraged me to join him by the pool, which I politely declined.

I had joined a couple ladies and an off-duty bartender at their table and made bland traveler talk. The ladies were professional travelers whose sole duty in life was to write about places they visited. Which I guess I do for free.

I had horribly offended a documentary filmmaker from Holland. I couldn't remember what I had said to him, but I remembered thinking he was a douchebag when within the first ten minutes of meeting him he was showing me pictures of himself receiving some award. He was a first world artist who made films about third world countries. I think my line of argument was that he shouldn't be trading in on other people's struggles.

While I was fighting with writing a grammar for Pan, Tropical Storm Nate blew through. It rained all day long, but I barely noticed. I was holed up in a hotel with conditional linguistic structures on my mind. The next day I learned that the road to Costa Rica was out and the border was closed. So I canceled my hostel in San Juan Del Sur and bought a plane ticket to San José.

*

My last night at the hotel there was a huge pool party outside my room. There were colorful lights and blaring reggaeton. A couple hundred partiers in club clothes were shaking booties and screaming smiles at each other.

I'm pretty useless in that kind of environment. I celebrated Pan's linguistic development by drinking beers in my dorm room and watching Season 3 of Buffy on my laptop. And that was how my stay in Nicaragua ended.