You know there are certain things in life that are great levellers: public transportation, humidity, lines to the women’s loo.

This is a story about the greatest leveller of all: Montezuma’s revenge. I used to have a friend who went to become a very well-known writer and director. In his younger salad days, he loved to surf and generally party. One spring vacation he decided to go to Mazatlan, Mexico. He was looking forward to an endless supply of booze and babes. Hot to trot, oh yeah.

On the evening of his first day there he spotted a gorgeous example of the other gender. He was at the local drinking spot and his eyes did a ‘Tex Avery’ (you know, in the cartoons when the character’s eyes go go conical and make an a-wooga-wooga sound). He ambled over and struck up a conversation. Turned out she was staying in the same hotel. Before she left, they made plans to meet the next day.

The day dawned bright, but my friend never knew it. He had spent the better part of the night praying to the porcelain goddess. Most of the time he didn’t know which end of his body to put in first. He filled up the trash can as fast as the other can. By dawn, he thought that there couldn’t be anything else left in him; but there was.

And so it went for the next few days. He couldn’t leave his room. The owner’s wife was kind enough to bring him soup, but he could barely look at it. Below his room, the smells from a restaurant taunted his nose all week. Every time the odours wafted up to his room, his stomach would rise up to his throat and he’d make a run for the bathroom. He got to the point where he wasn’t worried about coming back without a tan; he was worried about getting back at all.

Then, the rosy-fingered dawn brought his last day. His insides were feeling tired, but normal. He knew that he was on the mend because he was hungry. A small breakfast would be nice. It was good to be alive. He looked around his room. A pair of white linen slacks was still folded in his suitcase along with a nice new Mexican shirt purchased on his first day. As he shaved, he thought about how good it was to be alive. Yes sir, it was going to be a good day.

His room was around back of the hotel and had a private staircase. He slipped on his huaraches and bounded down the staircase and around the corner. Suddenly, the smells that had made him wretch all week were wonderful. He found a table on the patio and ordered his breakfast, “Huevos rancheros, por favour, y jugo naranjo, y café con leche gracias.” Life was good!

To ice that perfect little cake, the beautiful young woman from the first night walked up at that point. “Hey, what happened to you?” “I’m been a little under the weather,” he said standing up and offering her a chair. He offered to buy her breakfast. She sat down, no hard feelings, and they chatted while they ate. Then, the moment came when he felt that perhaps he had a bit of gas. Not surprising, considering the last few days. He thought, “I could probably squeeze off a silent one without her even knowing it.” So, very subtly he crossed his legs and lifted up his left nether cheek. To all intents and purposes, he looked as if he were merely shifting his position. But, he knew better and he knew that disaster had struck. At that moment he could feel the liquid filling his pants. The young woman was still talking, but his mind was racing. How could he gracefully exit and not blow it with the babe? Why didn’t he wear brown pants? Who talked him into going to Mexico? Will I ever get laid? Why me?!?

He suddenly stood up and walking backward he tried to extricate himself from the situation. He could feel the ooze run down the back of his legs. But the babe would not be denied. She got up too. Every step he took backward, she took forward, just like some kind of bizarre dance team. Fortunately, she seemed capable of keeping up both ends of the conversation because his brain had stopped functioning. He got as far as the bottom of the steps to his room when he realized that he and Miss Wonderful had no future. He muttered something about having to go and ran up the stairs. He spent the rest of the day with his pants in the tub and his butt in the can. He never went back to Mazatlan.

A Mexican President once said, “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.” Montezuma’s revenge, the Gringo disease, is the great leveller in that relationship.