Fun conversations with (sometimes) fun people

Me: Who was Fortunato Lacamera?

Painter: Come in, I have some of his work inside. (shows me paintings in a book, gives me some background on painters from La Boca). He was invited by Mussolini to travel to Italy to paint.

Me: Did he go?

Painter: Yes, of course. It’s Italy. Who cares about fascists?

*

Me: Why are there pictures of Humphrey Bogart everywhere?

Street vendor: That’s not Humphrey Bogart. That’s Carlos Gardel.

*

Taxi driver (8 am, coming home from a club): Do you want to go to a whorehouse?

Me (drunk): Sure, what’s that?

Taxi driver: Where you go to fuck whores.

Me: Oh, no, then, nevermind.

Taxi driver: Fifty pesos, you go in, you have a drink, then you get a woman.

Me: No, really, that’s okay.

Taxi driver: Forty pesos.

Me: No, thank you.

Taxi driver: Thirty pesos.

Me: Jesus Christ.

Taxi driver: Please don’t swear.

*

Waiter: Where are you from?

Me: The United States.

Waiter: Why do you speak such good Spanish?

Me: I lived in Ecuador for a while.

Waiter: And where is your family from? Why do you look like that?

Me: Mostly from Italy.

Waiter (to my friend): My God, he’s a fruit basket!

*

Me: I heard it’s going to be hot today.

Taxi driver: It’s going to be the devil’s balls.

*

Me: I heard La Boca lost last night.

Taxi driver: Good, fuck La Boca!

*

Shop owner: You can’t leave Buenos Aires. It’s the best city in the world.

Me (joking): I know. I want to marry an Argentine girl.

Shop owner (not joking): Come back in next weekend, I’ll have my daughter come in. You would like her. She’s 21, she’s a fashion designer, she’s very humble. I have another daughter, but you wouldn’t like her. She’s 30, and she’s a lawyer. She’s very argumentative.

Me: Well, I’m thirty. And I like strong-willed women.

Shop owner: No, no.

Me: (baffled, no response).

*

Customs officer: You can’t use this passport. You have to get another one.

Me: I can’t. There’s no embassy here.

Customs officer: Then you’re going to have to stay in Uruguay.

Me: Okay.

Customs officer (not amused): Give me the damn passport.