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.