vicente

There are numerous doormen in my building. They rotate shifts, each working their specific time of the day and week. Vicente is the weekend doorman; he works from Saturday morning through Sunday evening. He´s bald, freakishly tan, has a very wrinkly face and a few missing teeth, and his eyes are always extremely mischievious. He smokes a lot, always wears the same blue sweater and practices Buddhism. And he loves to talk... especially to young American women. If I enter or leave the building while Vicente´s at his post, I know I´m in for at least five minutes of chit-chat. This is usually pretty great, since it´s just another Spanish lesson for me, and it´s pretty rare that I´m in a hurry to get anywhere. Vicente´s favorite conversational topics are my liking of Argentina, my ¨beautiful eyes,¨ and whether or not I´ve taken an Argentine lover.

The first topic is great. I can go on forever about what I like and don´t like about Argentina, where I´ve been, where I´m planning to travel to, my opinions about certain things. All fairly safe subjects.

The second topic was possibly charming and/or slightly flattering the first time around. Now it´s just getting ridiculous. Especially because I know that my sister inherited the truly great eyes of the family, all big and green and speckled with long lashes... mine are small and quite unsure of which color they´d like to be. Nice try, Vicente, but you can´t fool me.

The third topic has provided much amusement for me. Vicente and I have had an ongoing argument over whether or not I can truly enjoy Argentina and experience it to its fullest without having an Argentine man to show me ¨how to really enjoy life.¨ My stand is that I have a man, I love him very much, I´m quite content with him, and in three short months he will be here to enjoy Argentine life with me. Vicente´s position is that there are no men in the world that compare to Argentine men, that I have no idea what I´m missing, and that I need to be less faithful, because I have my entire life to do that, and I´m too young to start now. It was all fun and games, arguing about my faithfulness and whether or not Argentine men are really that great, until this past weekend when he crossed the line and, in all sincerity, called me egotistical. That really got my Argentine goat, I tell you. Who is he to call me egotistical? Just for being faithful?? That doesn´t seem very logical.

Or very Buddhist, for that matter.