A MEMOIR

Red and Gold Death Trap

A story of survival

My brother was married in Mexico City. It is a beautiful place with amazing food (most of it anyway, see story link below), and a crime rate to scare the shit out of travelers.

But my sister-in-law to be gave us all the safety tips as a resident who had, to that point, never been kidnapped. I’d consider her an expert.

The advice she stressed was never to get in a red and gold cab. The red and gold ones weren’t licensed and anyone can paint their car, abduct you, steal your money and make you empty the ATM.

Check. Avoid red and gold cabs.

On the day of the wedding, my husband and I were to be separated. He was a groomsman and my sister-in-law had organized for my mom and me to have our hair and makeup done in my hotel room.

All was well. We had a plan. Once we were fancied up, we’d head to the hotel shuttle to the wedding pictures at the Four Seasons just across the street. We could have walked it if it weren’t for the fact that we had to be in those heels for the next 12 hours.

We stood outside our hotel awaiting transport. In Mexico City, weddings are formal affairs. We had gowns on, and the locals know when they see a gown, there is a wedding.

We got to the front of our hotel and were whisked into an awaiting van full of people in gowns. The occupants were having animated conversations in Spanish.

I don’t speak Spanish.

We asked the driver if we could go to the Four Seasons and the answer was a nod. There were hundreds of Spanish-speaking people going to my brother’s wedding. I had only met five of them at that point and all of them were currently at the Four Seasons smiling for the camera.

The van headed in the direction we were going and I realized everyone in the van was headed to the same wedding and it wasn’t my brother’s.

The van turned around and drove past the Four Seasons. We objected. The driver nodded and said:

After.

We drove about 10 minutes when my mother began to panic. She tried to ask the driver to let us out. Her hysterics stilled the conversation. It was a buzz-kill for sure. But the driver said:

Not safe here. Just a minute.

By the time we got to the van’s destination 20 minutes later, my mother was in full boil. She was certain she was going to miss her son’s wedding. I was certain we wouldn’t but thought it was going to be tight to get in the pictures. One of the other wedding guests muttered to the driver in Spanish and turned to us and told us he would only be a minute then he would drive us back.

WTF? He spoke Spanish and didn’t help us until now? The driver and all the passengers left us alone in the van.

We waited. And waited. My mother started to sweat off her smoky eye. No driver. Finally, I got out and talked to the porter from the hotel. He told me we had caught a private vehicle and that they could not transport us back because they were hired by the family to transport their guests.

Shit.

I asked the porter to call us a National cab. A white one.

What arrived was a slightly battered red and gold cab. We were very done up and wearing formal gowns. We were carrying nothing of true value except our phones, one piece of ID and a lipstick.

As my mother was objecting, I shoved her into the cab ducking her ginormous hair out of the way like a perp in a cop car. We needed to get to the wedding and I have a completely unhealthy faith in people. So far it has paid off, but was this my first failure?

We had been updating my husband and step-father the whole time but it was time to tell them we were on our way in a red and gold.

My mother is a beautiful singer and has a lovely even voice. Not on this occasion. She was speaking to her husband in a decibel reserved for a son’s hockey game when he is in goal. Here is the conversation:

We are in a red and gold cab with a driver who doesn’t speak a word of English. I don’t know where we’re going and I don’t know if we’re safe. He is a crazy driver and I don’t even know if he knows where he is going.

Way to tip our hat mom. Here is what I said when she got off the phone:

Mom, we have a great driver. He is going to get us there in time for the pictures and the wedding. I have faith he knows where he’s going and we’ll be fine. We are traveling in the right direction, all we can do is wait.

Gotta say, I believed every word and I must have sold it well because my mother calmed down.

There wasn’t much said after that until I said:

Here we are mom. We are on the road we need to be on, not long now.

That is when the cab driver said, in perfect English:

Is it your son’s wedding you are going to?

He was a great guy with a son studying in California.

He spoke perfect English.

He congratulated my mother and gave me a knowing wink. We made the pictures just in time. We got lost one more time that night, but that is another story.

Moral of the story, never bad mouth someone who has your safety in their hands (or is cutting your hair), even if it is in another language. Real moral of the story, I am always right, and having faith in people will never let you down.*

*I’m pretty sure those words will haunt me one day, but not today.