Some days, you don't win

Some days start out great from moment 1: you wake up refreshed and feeling great, and the world only gets better from there. Yesterday was not one of those days. Rather than drag you through the mud of the day, let me share one story:

To get from the University metro station to my building, I have to cross a divided road. While there are an indistinct number of lanes on each side of the division, limited mostly by how wide the cars are and how aggressive the drivers, there is usually very little traffic. Green space is held at a premium in Mexico City, so the medians of divided roads are typically turned into small park spaces (imagine for a moment an unfenced playground in the middle of a busy road -- while I appreciate the sentiment of making parks, it still feels a little bit like "Here's a ball, Timmy. Go play in the road!"). The park-median I go through each day has a paved walkway for those crossing and fences to limit foot traffic on the grass. Yesterday morning, someone had left the sprinklers on, spraying the walkway. Rather than walking to the end of the fence and scampering through the median gap with the cars trying to turn around, I decided to follow the lead of the nicely dressed young man near me who was also stuck trying to cross. We both watched the sprinklers, realized that we could easily get down the path between sprays of water, and ran for it. Seriously, who hasn't had happy thoughts back to running through the sprinklers as a kid even if they're hoping to stay dry this time? The worst case scenario was that I would somehow slip on the damp paving, fall, and end up getting a little wet...or so I thought. It turns out that the water used on the lawns of the university has been treated with something. Something that smells suspiciously like raw sewage. While I didn't fall or get hit directly by the water, the mist was...*shudder* I immediately dove into the next building and spent the next 10 minutes scrubbing any exposed flesh in the restroom sink. I don't want to hear from anyone that it was probably sewage. I don't care if you have first-hand knowledge, or personally shat in the water tank. I just keep telling myself that it couldn't have been truly terribly stuff, otherwise it would be inappropriate to spray all over a grassy area used by picnickers on a university campus. *gag*

Keating insisted when I got home last night that I didn't smell odd. Still, that smell was in my nose all day long. I'm lucky I still have skin left after the scrubbing I gave myself.

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Note: About an hour after posting, I received this friendly email from my mom:

"Eew. You asked that no one give you further information, but a little food for thought-a few years back Mexico had a problem with "unplanted" tomato plants showing up everywhere and it was determined to be coming from the watering source-the seeds don't digest...SORRY! "

Ah, thanks Mom. Thanks. *shudder*