The Bumbles Abroad

By E. Medosch

We went to Barcelona to visit our Girl during her junior semester abroad. At first, we were overjoyed to be together, to be in Spain, to have Bumble Girl as a fluent translator.

But the translating got old quickly. It was the way her face looked when one of us (who shall remain nameless) needed the Girl to translate a particular malady to a druggist in a local “Farmacia”. We needed medication for a certain . . . uh . . . condition that many travelers experience.

“I am not asking for that,” Bumble Girl said. But she was pressured into it with threats that someone would have to mime the condition to make themselves understood. So she asked and the pharmacist answered in long, drawn out Spanish. That’s when the Girl looked at us as if to say “How long are you staying again?”

“What did he say?”

“Ointment or suppository,” she said, “and I’ll be waiting outside.”

Americans in Europe are not always met with open arms and joyful rejoicing, but that’s OK. Most people are wonderfully friendly and we’re always hyper-aware of our own tendency to seem like the “I Love Lucy Show” with cell phones. It’s not an American thing. It’s a Bumble thing.

We were not on a tour. We were on our own. Two weeks in Barcelona and four days in Italy. Picture this small family of three standing like pieces of china in a bull shop in the mega-crowded Napoli train terminal. One of us narrowly avoided arrest. A random ticket check by the conductor showed that Mr. Bumble had failed to validate his ticket. Validate? Who knew? Then Mr. B was definitely on his way to jail because he became irate and used some words that, you know, really needed no translation. Girl and I, of course, stepped in to save the day.

Except we hadn’t validated our tickets either. Seriously, couldn’t someone have told us? The good news is that Mr. Bumble was obviously no scammer and that as a family we were . . . what was the word the man used? Stupido.

Forty euros later, which I believe equates to $753 (just kidding) we were free to go. We all took a restroom break which cost another 67 euros. Something like that.

But Barcelona, ah Barcelona. It is such a cool city. They have buildings so old it makes the Indian King Tavern look like a recent development. And we were fortunate to be invited by a local resident one night to join her at a tapas bar. Mr. Bumble was especially excited but as the evening wore on he turned glum.

“What’s wrong,” I asked.

“I thought she said ‘topless’ bar.”

So we floundered with the language, naturally, but I’ve come back with a few simple phrases such as “No tenga dinero” which means, I believe, “No dancing with money.” Mr. Bumble however, gave up even trying. When the doorman would greet us with a Spanish phrase each day, he’d answer the first thing that came to mind.

Doorman: “Que tenga un buen dia!”

Bumble: “Teriyaki guacamole.”

Doorman: “Hasta pronto!”

Bumble: “Hugh Masekela.”

Then, on the very last morning in Barcelona we were cleaning the apartment we’d rented and I went outside to throw away the garbage. Dumpsters are different in Barcelona. They have a pneumatic lid and a foot pedal to work it. I tossed the garbage and heard the sickening “Chink!” of metal keys hitting the inside of the dumpster. Not only could I not get back in the apartment, I couldn’t get into the building. And who brings a cell phone to take out the trash?

I could see those keys. They were lying atop a pile of fish heads. Big seafood eaters, these Barcelonians. The top of the dumpster was about five feet off the ground. A kind gentleman who was walking past stopped to help. He spoke no English. I showed him the keys. He tried to leap up to the opening and went over the edge so fast, his legs were perpendicular to the street. I had to pull him back by his belt. When he came out, he looked a lot older than he had going in.

Yet still no keys. It was up to me. A dumpster-diving Bumble in Barcelona - surely the stuff of legend. I got a quick boost and landed sideways in the trash praying “Oh God, please don’t let me touch the oozing bag”.  I grabbed the keys. Then I was yanked up by my aging Don Quixote, in much the same fashion as a mother cat carrying a kitten.

So we made our flight on time. And it wasn’t until we were midway over the Atlantic I discovered that a suspicious fish smell wasn’t the airline lunch. There, neatly impressed onto the sole of my shoe was a little “pimento” shall we say? of my visit to the garbage. The head of a jumbo shrimp (no body, just the head) was stuck  there - complete with two-inch feelers and black, albeit crushed, eyeballs on stalks.

Like I said, the stuff of legend. I have but one nagging fear. Should we have declared the shrimp head at customs? Will there be some heretofore unknown shrimp parasite that suddenly appears in Philly and South Jersey killing all the Canadian Geese?

Now THAT would be a Bumble thing.