Fun in the Philippines

So, finally a simple mission. Paris, the agent, not the city, and I have to go to the Philippines, pick something up from some guy named John Lange and ship it back to the US. Paris picks up the travel guide and flips through it: crime rate - severe, terrorism - severe, risk to personal safety - severe, and suddenly I am longing for something safer, such as storming the Versailles with (Up)Chuck, Alex Architecture, the International Terrorist Jacques and a roll of duct tape.

Anyway, Paris, the agent, not the city, makes arrangements for a hotel (with a pool), a rental car and the flight over. (Mental note: she is pretty good at this and it is much nicer traveling with a plan, than, say traveling through the French Alps with Jack, a cell phone, minimal cash, a stolen car and no itinerary.)

We arrive in the Manila and check out the hotel and its pool. All seems satisfactory and we go to the hotel restaurant for food. Of course, I am traveling with Paris, the agent, not the city, which means that I, too, had a lovely dinner!

After dinner, we go to the Club California, which is where John Lange works. We enter the bar and attempt to blend. However, I soon feel the way I can only imagine Paris, the agent, not the city, feels when she comes to Paris, the city, not the agent. I don’t speak the language (or any language that’s close) and I seem to be having a little trouble blending in. (I know, I shouldn’t have used SPF 80 sun block, but I burn easily).

Two Japanese businessman approach the table and try to pick us up. I stare blankly and Paris, obviously tapping into the collective anger of all Hawaiians affected by Pearl Harbor, quickly rebuffs them in Japanese. I don’t know what she said, but it must have been good, because the yellow man turned red, his ego deflated and he went to the bar to spread the word that she was a bitch.

Paris, the agent, not the city, then attempts to communicate to the waitress that we need to speak with John Lange. Some guy approaches the table with a bottle of wine and three glasses, and by the look of him, if he’s John Lange, then I can pass for Imelda Marcos (and I used to have the shoes to prove it - you know from the pre-(Up)Chuck puking period of my life).

He introduces himself as Rafael Something-Filipino and says he owns the bar. Paris, the agent, not the city, once again explains that we are waiting for John Lange. Finally a glimmer of hope. Rafael Something-Filipino calls a waitress to tell John to come to the table.

John arrives and becomes so enamored with Paris, the agent, not the city, that he misses the superbly surreptitious sneaky sign that Paris attempts to show him, in the form of a ripped dollar bill (originally it was supposed to be a torn half a dollar bill, but there was some confusion as to whether half of the bill should be torn, or we needed to find a half dollar bill - and that wouldn’t be easy, eh? - and rip it)

So, I take Rafael Something-Filipino away from the table by expressing interest in the collection of crap he has hanging on the wall, but apparently I was too stuck on the crap part of it to show sincere interest. Rafael Something-Filipino suggests that we engage in Bullshit, some weird drinking game where the rules kept changing. Every time he judged something to be a lie, I was supposed to take a drink. He didn’t buy my story about John being the father of Paris’ two year old child who was desperately in need of an organ transplant and needed family members to be tested for compatibility. (I am racking up frequent use preposition points.)

Back at the table, Paris, the agent, not the city, has finally managed to make John realize that she was here for the pick-up (of goods). She then asks him what it is we will be shipping back to the States. He tells her it is flowers.

Flowers! Are they nuts? Did nobody read the report of what I did to the gardens at the Versailles? My thumb isn’t green, it’s black, and quite frankly, after hours of questioning by Inspector Clusine about Parisian pansies (the flowers, not (Up)Chuck and his new boyfriend), I have developed a personal vendetta against all plant life. In fact, I am keeping a huge potted plant in my apartment for the sole purpose of being a barf-bin for (Up)Chuck, should he ever show up at my apartment again.

Paris, the agent, not the city, and I finally end up at the bar, where two Americans come and sit to the left of Paris. Using her new found, yet fine-tuned ability to shrink male egos and put down come-ons, she cools their ardor. She does, however, hear them say that they are looking for newly arrived Americans. It’s okay, we told them we were natives, and I think they totally bought my story about a non-color safe bleach accident.

The next day, Paris, the agent, not the city, meets a contact to purchase some items for import to the US. After that, we head back to the Club California to meet John Lange and Rafael Something-Filipino (who is apparently in on the whole thing). We drive to some deserted location for lunch and the floral exchange. Some chick named Nancy hands us a list of instructions.

We scan the list. These things are harder to care for than gremlins! They need to be watered every six hours and kept at a ridiculously tropical temperature and horrendous humidity. (I am secretly wishing that Jack and (Up)Chuck were here, because they would simply kill the flowers - as they kill everything that enters their hotel rooms - and even though they would have argued ‘til dawn about how to get rid of the little plant bodies, it would have been worth it.)

Paris, the agent, not the city and I exchange meaningful we-are-hopelessly-clueless-about-horticultural-matters glances, but Paris assures them that we have a good way of shipping the f’in (and that’s not short for fame pointed) flowers.

So Paris and I go back to the hotel with our fine flowered friends and put the Do Not Disturb sign out. We carefully go through our options. Airplane - no, cruise ship - mmm, no - cargo ship - maybe? That would involve Plan Z00 - going through customs and rolling a 00, which would practically enable us to wheel cannabis plants by them without hassle. Or we could always use the newly modified Plan B - Plan B.A.T. (Plan B After Travel), where we allow the Americans from the bar to steal the plants from us, import them, and then hit them over the head and take the stuff.

However, since the Americans from the bar (who work for the company of our sponsoring customer) surely bought our story about being natives, they won’t think to try and steal the flowers from us, because we can’t possibly be the ones who are here for them. Okay, we decide on the cargo ship option. Paris, the agent, not the city, gets several boxes resembling the ones that contain the items she bought to ship and we split the flowers up among them. We get humidifiers and space heaters (along with the usual pre-printed items, you know drop cloth, etc.) and call John Lange and Rafael Something-Filipino to drive us to the docks.

The trip to Hawaii is fairly uneventful, and Paris, having mastered the art of rolling really high when going through customs, gets us into the states with our contraband flowers uncontested.

In a rare spark of dice genius, I have rolled an 06 and Cult and Squid are in the waters of Hawaii just waiting to take us to California with the plants in exchange for lots of beer and some cash.

In celebration of a job well done, I go for broke and switch to SPF 60 sun block. Hey, sometimes you’ve got to live dangerously!