Forget the stuffed mushrooms

Everyone should have a party story. You know, the story you bring out, complete with embellishments, when conversation gets dry? The one that gets people away from the artichoke dip and closer to the crowd with every twist in your tale? Well, everyone should have one, though unfortunately you cannot make up a party story - it has to be an outrageous it-seriously-happened-to-me story. Luckily, the following outrageous story seriously happened to me.

(My apologies to those who have already heard me share this ditty. Back to the artichoke dip for you.)

One day while serving an LDS mission in El Salvador, my companion and I decided to take the bus to visit a family who lived up a steep hill. Now, we weren't afraid of the steep hill. If my memory serves me correctly - and it rarely does - we had to climb up and down NINE steep hills just to get back to our house from our assigned area. So while I was eating a ridiculous amount of pupusas (basically a tortilla ravioli), I had buns of steel. But that day we had several large bags of clothes we wanted to give to the family and didn't want to carry them all the way. Of course, I once saw a woman walking uphill with a large basket of tortillas on her head while NURSING so we didn't have a good excuse.

Now, I should preface this story by saying this was my one area in El Salvador where my safety wasn't in jeopardy on a daily basis. We were up in a mountain town that had a unique European vibe and general tranquility. Also, a lot of albinos and redheads. The former, according to rumors, was because of inbreeding. The latter, according to rumors, was because there had been a commune of draft-dodgers back in the day who came down on occasion to dally with the women. And, apparently, dark hair genes plus hippies genes makes red hair, but I digress. The whole point is we didn't feel totally weird being the only Americans in town, though my companion drew a lot of attention because she looked like Barbie. Or "La Barbie," as they called her.

Anyway, we went to get on this bus only to realize that there was no actual schedule for the bus, other than when the driver felt like driving. So we found ourselves sitting alone on the bus for nearly an hour. As we sat, I happened to look out the window and notice a guy with a significant amount of blood dripping down his arm. Sadly, this wasn't that troublesome as we often saw a lot of drunks stumble and cut themselves up on the ragged cobblestone roads. But as I looked closer, I saw the source of his injury: A MACHETE. Through. His. Arm.

Yes, people, the dude had a machete going straight through his bicep. This was slightly unnerving for several reasons, so I shot him a look like, "No esta bueno, hombre!" which for those who don't speak Spanish means, "You have a freaking machete in your arm, hombre!" As my companion made the same realization, the man began to stumble over in our direction. On his forehead was tattooed the number 13, which is one of the most dangerous gangs in the country ... so we didn't want to make friends with him any time soon.

Just then, Machete Man stopped, looked as his arm, and pulled out an American dollar bill to wipe up the blood. Don't know what that does for the story, but it's always good to share random details to prove the validity of the story.

Anyway, after doing that, Machete Man began to walk over to our bus. Nervous, we hollered something to get the attention of a passerby. Probably something like, "Hey, we're Americans! Would you like to marry us for a green card so you can meet Christina Aguilera?" We then asked the passerby if Machete Man was dangerous, to which he replied, "Oh yeah, he just killed a guy in that alley over there." Just after he said that, Machete Man came up to the bus, tapped on the passerby's shoulder and politely said, "Excuse me, may I get on?" And to our shock, the passerby just said, "Go ahead, sir," and began to let him on!

!!!!!!!!!!!
(Just a slight illustration of our concern.)

At that point, I felt like I needed to defuse the situation by pointing out the machete to Machete Man, who was not aware of his arm's problem or his new nickname.

"Um, you have a machete through your arm," I said.

He just stared blindly at me, looked at the machete and walked back off the bus. He stumbled a few more steps down the street before rounding a corner and promptly passing out. At the same time, a herd of policemen ran down the road and asked us if we had seen a man fitting his description.

I said, "He's around the corner. You can't miss him. He's got a machete through his arm. And he might be dead."

To which one of the policeman said, "Not again."

And that's my party story. Clearly, I need to work on the ending. Though I have always wondered, if he meant, "Not again - another bad guy dies before we can bring him to justice." Or, "Not again - another man who doesn't even know he has a machete through his arm."

I think for the sake of storytelling, I'll go with the latter.

What's your best party story? (Link where necessary.)