EL TOPO

I've been working with Mexicans at the metal shop for the last year and a half. As always I try to improve my language skills and I help them with English. The other week I gave Oscar, who has prevented my fingers from getting ripped off my lathes or pierced by drill presses, the movie EL TOPO by Alejandro Jodorowsky. I explained the surrealistic story line of a mad gunfighter or pistelero loco. Oscar had walked across the Sonoran Desert for three days. He finished his water within 24 hours. "On the third day I thought I was going to die, but I said, "I am not going to die here." I walked another day to the pick-up. Everyone was happy, because they figured me for dead. So I know surrealism, but you know what an el topi is." "A gopher." "Si, pero tam bien caca." "Shit." "Yes, because when you take a shit in Mexico, we say, "Se me sale le topi." Because the shit is like a gopher sticking his head out of a hole." "No way." "Si." We had a good laugh and Oscar took the film home. He never watched it, but we still laugh about 'el topo'. Mexicans have a good sense of humor.