So Much for The Ceremonial Beverage of Zapotec Kings

The nice owner of the Bed and Breakfast in Oaxaca gave Plot and Duck a 50%-off price on a small bottle of mezcal, maybe half a pint. Mezcal is really, really good and Oaxaca is where they grow the maguey cactus and distill the mezcal, so Plot was happy to have it. He stuck it in his travel bag for a rainy day.



The previous day, before they'd purchased the mezcal, Plot and Duck had bought some small, black pottery from an old lady at a marketplace in San Bartolo de Coyotepec, a Zapotec village south of Oaxaca. They had also bought a beautiful 3' X 5' tapete (weaving), in the village of Teotitlan del Valle.



When they left Oaxaca, Duck packed the pottery and the tapete and some other purchases very carefully in an extra duffle bag the Plotniks always carry for this purpose. They took it on the bus to Puebla and the plane to Stiletto City.

But leaving Spermbank International Airport, the security checker announced she needed to take a closer look into Plotnik's carry-on. She uncovered the small bottle of mezcal, that Plottie had totally forgotten about. In Mexico, mezcal is a ceremonial beverage, consumed by ancient kings, but at any US airport mezcal is a liquid and/or a gel. It's on a par with toothpaste. You can't take more than three ounces of toothpaste on a plane from Spermbank to Smokeland and you can't take mezcal either.

So, Plottie had to take the small bottle of mezcal out of his carry-on and pack it into the extra duffle bag along with the black pottery, then go back outside and through the front door again into the terminal to walk to the airline counter and check in the duffle bag as luggage.

However, also in the duffle bag was the beautiful tapete, which is wool, and Duck was worried that if the glass bottle of mezcal should break it would stain the tapete. So Plot had to unpack the duffle bag at the check-in counter and remove the tapete. However, to remove the tapete he had to take out all the carefully wrapped and protected black pottery. Then, he put the mezcal bottle back in the duffle, repacked the black pottery and checked it in. As he was about to say "Could you put a fragile sticker on that or something?" the lady heaved the bag onto the conveyor belt to take it to the plane.

You already know the end to this story. When the Plotniks got to Smokeland, they waited for their duffle bag to come down, and it did. It came down like this: Clank, clank, clank, clank, clank.

Anyway, two of the black pottery pieces were not completely shattered to bits and neither was the mezcal, and the tapete looks great in the living room.

Many, many great photos, beginning tomorrow. You're looking at what Plot and Duck wore at the Guelaguetza dance festival and then all around Oaxaca and Puebla for the next week.