Have Dog, Will Travel!

It’s been a little more than a month, and I’ve discovered the secret behind Argentina’s beautiful girls.

Well, that’s not really the case-I’ll clarify. I’ve discovered the secret behind Argentina’s beautiful women.

Last night I had dinner with my friend Trevor and his girlfriend, Tatiana. Trevor’s a bit older, late 30’s or so. Tatiana’s roughly the same age. It was set up at the last minute-Trevor and I were having drinks, he got a call, a few minutes later we were sitting at a table with Tatiana and her friend Marita.

I’m going to have to call this a double-date, because I ended up paying for Marita after an awkward 15-second pause post-dinner. I guess this also marks my first blind date ever, but I’m getting distracted from the story at hand.

I knew from the get-go things weren’t going to work out romantically. We didn’t really click, and there was the whole issue of her age-I thought she had to be at least 30 or so. In truth, she was a pretty attractive woman-in great shape and very well put together (like every other female in this country).

I don’t mind older women, but thirty’s a stretch, especially when there are legions of gorgeous 18-22 olds strutting their stuff down the street.

Still, I’m a gentleman (more or less), and we enjoyed our meal of parilla (barbeque) immensely. We ate at Miranda, a bustling restaurant just down the block from my house.

After we finished eating, the ladies went upstairs to the bathroom. Trevor turned to me and said in his lyrical Australian accent, “Well, I’m sorry mate. I had no idea”. I asked him what the hell he was talking about, and he replied, “I didn’t know she was going to bring someone that old.”

I didn’t think it was a huge deal. Thirty is definitely at the upper reaches in terms of what I’m looking for in a woman, but not absolutely ridiculous, and I let him know that.

He laughed, and said, “Check out her hands when she comes back.”

As the ladies returned, the waiter came and took our order for dessert. I’m a sucker for Flan-it’s really good down here, and completely counter-productive to the 4 a week sessions I’m doing at the gym.

Conversation resumed, and I took a peek down at my date’s left hand, wrapped around a wine glass. I could sit here for an hour trying to describe what I saw, but this will have to do:

Think back to the last time you took a steaming hot bath. Post bubble-induced relaxation, you slowly emerge from the water. Now take a second to check out your fingers and hands.

That’s the picture I saw swishing red wine in slow, lazy circles.

Talk about a mismatch. Face=30, Hands=45. Add or subtract a couple of years either way, but that’s still a pretty serious gap. In any case, we soon parted company and Trevor and I went to a bar for a couple of drinks. The bars around my neighborhood are packed with people my age pretty much every night. That’s a good thing.

I woke up this morning, and did a bit of research on plastic surgery in Argentina. Consider the following.

Like most other things in Argentina, the prices on the plastic surgery menu are exactly the same as they would be in the States. But wait…you need to slash them by about 70%, because one dollar buys you about 3.5 pesos.

According to the Guardian (a British newspaper), “One in 30 Argentinians is estimated to have gone under the plastic surgeon’s knife”. Eliminate the 23.4% living under the poverty line, and that means that about one in 22 middle to upper class Argentinians has had work done. That’s a pretty impressive number.

A lot of people in American complain about the lack of access to affordable, high quality health care. Chew on this: the best plans in Argentina include a yearly stipend for a tummy tuck, boob job, or face lift. In the States, I couldn’t even afford health insurance. Here, if I play my cards right, I could end up with a free nose job. (Don’t worry, I like my nose just fine).

In any case, it’s all part of the Argentine obsession with beauty. I walk Nevada every morning in gym shorts and a T-shirt, and people stare at me like I’m from another planet. In fact, shorts are pretty much unheard of here outside the gym. Yeah, uh, it’s about 100 degrees here everyday. Enjoy your pants, I’ll stick with my shorts.

UPDATE: Trevor just sent me the following text message (Thursday morning, approximately 5 days after the date): “The Cryptkeeper asked for your number—I didn’t give it—ok?”

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 14th, 2008 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.