Weekend at Berno's

The other day one of the locals I befriended named Berno invited me to celebrate his child's birth.
The child in it's early developmental stage seemed hardly capable of contributing much worth noting, yet I thought older people would provide insights into the Argentine condition.

My first impression of Argentina infant birthdays was rather positive. The father was cranking Jimmy Hendrix full volume and the baby was playing with an Argentine edition Winny the Pooh (it was a Peronista street protester the Pooh). There was an assortment of party food such as chips, cheetos, guacamole and tortillas, Coca-Cola, Sprite and Heineken. Until then these Argentines seemed to be accepting global hegemony. Everyone was getting along and the conversation was amenable.

But then the troubles started.

The mother rolled out the local food: peceto, arrollado dulce, and what really seemed to tip the scale: Russian Salad. From that moment on everyone got a little louder. Controversies started to erupt. River vs. Boca, City vs. Country, Capitalist vs. Communist, etc. The mounting tension was palpable. We seemed to drift closer, with every byte of these local flavors, to a full out fist fight.

"Marn', ween ya see them trybl' peepls goin et'it, doncha take naw sydes. Das how ma papa went. Arraw to da hed tryn' to fix'em up Cherokee cheevs." Charley, I tried to follow your advice... but then, the grandmother in a fit of fury after losing face in an argument about pasta vs. potato gnocchi confronted me.

She considered herself grieved because I came to her country, was invited to her granddaughter's birthday and had the spunk not to talk to or play with the child.
What did she want me to say? "Congratulations on successfully circumnavigating the sun, through no merit of your own despite your caretakers best attempts to die of red meat ingestion and 70's rock overexposure."
And as far as playing with the child, frankly, I only came because of the father. As far as the child goes, I wasn't sold. When we could have a basic conversation then we could agree to spend some time at parties. I'm not going to sign any papers with someone who could turn out to be a Khmer Rouge sympathizer.

These completely reasonable arguments only seemed to enrage the abuela even more. My attempts at reasoning were thus exhausted.
For the old woman's sake I did what Niels Bohr would have done and tried to unify our theories. This was a poor assessment. It turns out that if there is something Argentines love more than complaining it's staunchly defending a position solely to contradict others. Reaching accords is a major faux pas.

My friend kindly asked me to apologize for this, but I thought he meant to apologize about my original statements. The woman was pushing ninety and did not look good. She already had enough of a stoop story without the trip to the ER. When I was about to retract for the sake of peace Berno's face twitched, he stopped me to say under his voice "don't you dare apologize for your opinions in my house! This is a free country..."

After that I played with the baby, which was the appropriate way to reach a truce. Everyone including the grandma seemed satisfied. The baby turned out to be a lot more sophisticated than I anticipated being fully dexterous in kissing on the cheek, high-fiving, knocking heads on command and displaying her index finger when asked about her age. She also discarded most gifts while primal-dancing to "All Along The Watchtower." With that nascent being I already found some points of agreement.