One of the most fun parts of the trip to Vegas happened while I was walking through Juarez on the way back. That’s when a dude tried to mug me.

I was wandering off on some quiet street (I walked from the El Paso airport to the Juarez bus terminal because I’m a cheap bastard) when a guy came up and asked (in Spanish) for some pesos. I politely said “no hablos espanol”, and kept walking. He walked up alongside me again, and demanded “MONEY! GIVE ME MONEY! NOW!” “No, sorry.” I said, as I kept walking. “NO?! NO?!” he shouted, a little bit of spittle hitting me in the face. “No,” I politely replied. He marched in front of me, put his hands on my shoulders, and said something that I’m sure would have been threatening if I understood a word of Spanish. He then, using simple English words, and hand motions, explained that if I did not give him my money, he would karate chop me in the neck. He then put on his most exxageratedly intimidating face, pointed to it and huffed “muy serio.” to proclaim how deadly serious he was about the upcoming Karate attack.

“So you’re a karate master, eh?” I said as I continued walking, well aware he could not understand a word I was saying. “I’m into Kung Fu, myself. Tae Kwon Do, Muy Thai… I did Gumdo for a while, but they took away my belt because I accidentally killed a man.”

He was getting more and more frustrated that I was attempting hold a casual conversation, and showing no sense of awareness that he was attempting to mug me. “MONEY! MONEY!” “I hear that,” I responded, “those karate lessons can’t be cheap. You know, I’ve got to admit, this is pretty exciting. I’ve never been mugged before- well, I suppose I still haven’t. I guess in order to even call it an attempted mugging there would have to be some perceived threat, and to be honest, you had to get up on your tippy-toes just to show me the Karate chop, so I’m not feeling it.”

As I continued casually rambling in English that he couldn’t understand, he continued threatening me in Spanish I couldn’t understand. We went about 5 blocks before we passed a market, and I finally said “Well man, it’s been great chatting with you and all, but I’m gonna go buy me a mother-freakin’ Torta.” I turned, went inside, and never saw him again.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 9:37 am and is filed under Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.