On the street where we live

We are at the beach town of Puerto Escondido.  So far, Natalie and Helen got braids like Bo Derek in "10," Max got a henna tattoo between his shoulder blades, and I got a salt rash on my inner thigh.  But even though I prefer mountains and fresh water to the beach -- unlike the rest of my family, who would be happy to live here -- I am having enough fun that I do not want to spend any more time in this internet stand.  It smells like backpacker's sweat.  It was with this in mind that I wrote and saved a blog post before we left.  We will write more when we get back to Oaxaca, which will be tomorrow, Saturday or Sunday.  (Ah, the pleasures of unscheduled time....) 

Sorry for the canned nature of this post.  Here it is:

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With less than three weeks left in Mexico, we do not expect any more visitors.  Nevertheless, just in case somebody decides to surprise us, here is some important information about getting to our house.

Our house number is 108.  (If you know us well enough to visit, then you already know the street name so I will not write it here.)  But here is what could happen if you ask the taxi driver to take you to number 108. First, the driver might stop at this house, which is not our house.  

Wrong Number 108.

In fact, this house is not technically on our street, but it is easy to mistake it for being on our street because the street name is almost the same and it is just across from our street.

Next, the driver would stop at this house, which is on our street, but it is not where we live.

Wrong Number 108.

Our number 108 is next, but if the driver happened to look up a moment too late he would drop you at this house instead.  Once again, right number, wrong house.

Wrong Number 108.

So. . .  to make sure you get let off at the right house, be sure to tell the driver we are the number 108 with a broken down car in the driveway.

Our Number 108.

Intrigued by the number of houses with the same number, the other day I wrote down all of the house numbers on our street.  It was very interesting.  Either there are several orderly systems overlaid on one another, or people just choose whatever number they feel like having.  Here is the sequence of numbers on our side of the street, the even side:

108 – 104 – 102 – 200 – 208 – 200 – 402 – 300 – 302 – 106 – 106A – 302 – 304 – 108 – 108 – 308 – 310 – 322 – 216 – 120 – 200

The odd side of the street is similarly disjointed, plus it has two even numbers, including one of the 108’s!  Perhaps this explains why only a couple of the letters people sent via snail mail reached us.  I pity the mail carrier who has to sort mail for our street.  --Harrison