A quick tip

Here's a tip for you if you're a foreign guy in Mexico and you want to impress the local ladies:

When you're walking down the street with a woman here, be sure to position yourself on the outside, between her and the traffic. The idea, I guess, is that your body is somehow protecting her from the impact of any vehicle that might suddenly come careening onto the sidewalk.

When I was first told about this practice I didn't give it much thought, since I figured it was just something left over from the golden days of Mexican machismo. But then later I was talking to a woman friend here who is very much a hater of all that is macho and even she admitted that when she's walking in the company of a guy, she likes to have him an walk between her and the traffic.

"If he doesn't make that effort," she said, "it kind of shows him to be thoughtless."

My response to that: Ooops.

Since then, I've been making a real effort to walk on the traffic side.