“It’s ¡con gas!”

Wait a minute. That was the most striking, and most terrifying, part of the day, but I should start from the beginning.

The day began like most of our others: slowly, casually, pleasantly. We woke up late (though earlier than recently), we had breakfast and tea. We double checked all the travel plans for the day, and we were definitely in no hurry to get started. We had all day, and visiting the Concha y Toro winery was all we’d planned to do.

To get there was a rather lengthy—but, ultimately, a cheap and easy—process. We could take the metro to get most of the way there, switching trains two times en route. When we get almost to the end of the blue line, we exit, and from there the winery runs a shuttle service we’d take to get there and back to the metro in the evening. The whole trip takes about 1.5 hours each way, but for about $2 USD per person round trip on the train, plus $4 USD per person round trip on the shuttle, the price can’t be beat!

It was after noon by the time we left the apartment, but, again, we were in no hurry. We were planning to take the hour long tour at the winery, and probably do some other wine tasting/drinking. But all told we only needed a couple hours there. So, super casual.

We weren’t sure what food options were available at the winery itself, and figured whatever was there would probably be expensive, so we planned to find something to eat once we got out of the subway. We also wanted to grab a bottle of water, because of all the same reasons. We exited at Las Mercedes station and found the guy offering the shuttle service to the winery. Once we determined this was the legit service, and not some vendor trying to take advantage of us, we told him thanks, we’ll be back, we just need to get some food and water.

Looking around, our options were less than thrilling. Closest to us was a pizza place, but I believe we’d just had two straight pizza dinners, so we agreed we could not. Across the street was… a pizza hut. Hmmm. We saw a McDonalds next to the pizza place (the non pizza hut pizza place), and after pointing out that it’d been quite a while since we’d Americaned, decided it would have to do.

I don’t know if a tour bus had just dropped a load of people off or what, but there were a ton of people in line at the McDonalds. As the line slowly, slowly, dissipated, we struggled to figure out what each of us were getting. I suggested I was getting one of the combos. Erika asked if she could share my fries and soda. I said I was too hungry for that. Maybe it was good that the line took forever, because we took forever getting our plans together.

Maybe this struggle was my first clue of danger. But I just didn’t pick up on the signs.

Eventually, we decided, and, eventually, our “food” was delivered. Erika took a bite of her chicken sandwich and grimaced. “God, it’s not real chicken,” she intoned deeply, the heaviness of the sigh she released rippling through the restaurant like the first jolt of an earthquake. “Oh disgusting,” she clarified.

I mean, she’s not wrong. It is McDonalds, and if I can take a brief moment here to interrupt, I’d like to say: how does this place still exist? Their food is disgusting, it’s no secret how unhealthy it is, the entire experience of being there is unpleasant and soul crushing. And here in South America, it’s not even cheap! When converting to US Dollars, they’re charging US prices down here when you can get far better food for cheaper!

Anyway, as I said, Erika’s not wrong. But at the time, there we were, so I wasn’t sure what our alternative was. All I could offer up was a meek “we could go find something else if you’d like.” She responded, “I really thought we were only coming here just to get a bottle of water.”

Look… we communicate well. Really well. We’re both really good at talking to one another, and saying what we’re thinking, and most of the time we’re naturally in sync to begin with. It’s awesome. To be this out of sync? To have communicated this poorly? I think I was stunned, mostly. Surprised, and so despite the rising tension, I still didn’t pick up on the danger.

I still didn’t fully see it.

“Well, I wish I knew that before I had this burger,” I said with an uneasy smile. “Do you want to go somewhere else?”

“No, it’s okay.” So we finished our meal and were ready to leave. We decided not to get the bottled water here because it was kind of expensive, so we headed outside.

“There was that shop inside the metro station, we could go get water there?” I suggested.

Erika looked around, and spotted a street vendor nearby. “Let’s go see if we can get some there,” she said.

We went over and asked how much. “600 pesos”–half as much as at McDonalds! Well, maybe things were looking up. We grabbed a bottle and started heading back to the metro station to get set up for the shuttle.

This is a terrible time to do so, but let me take a brief moment to talk about bottled water in South America. Bottled mineral water comes in two varieties: with carbonation (“gas”), and without. One is gross, and the other one doesn’t have carbonation. I guess some people like it with, somewhere? But I can’t imagine how. Everywhere you go, you have to check and make this distinction, by checking the bottle you pick off the shelf, or when you ask the waiter to bring you water. Sin gas, por favor.

We should have been more careful.

We found the shuttle service guy, and he said the next shuttle would be in about 15 minutes. We went and found some shade to stand in while we waited for it. Erika twisted off the bottle cap on the water, and a slight, faint hiss could be heard. It was like Pandora’s Box had been opened. The new chill to the air went straight to your bones.

A deep, guttural, demonic groan emanated from the love of my life. “Oh God, it’s ¡con gas!”, my wife hellishly cried.

Dear reader, I don’t believe I have the words to describe the terror I suddenly felt in my heart. Suddenly, I could see all the signs that I’d missed all afternoon: the indecisiveness at lunch, the inability to communicate, the crankiness. It was PMS. And now this, this god damn carbonated water, this was going to be the end of me. Erika was Vesuvius, and I, Pompeii, was about to be buried.

I could hear the tiny, high-pitched voice deep in my brain. “Run away!”, it cried. I just stared at her, wide eyed, ready to be struck down. I had done this. I had made the mistakes.

She took a sip of the noxious potion in her hand. “Ugh,” she groaned, in a way that words can’t capture.

And really, she’s right. Who drinks this?! It’s awful! “Ugh!” I say in a way words can’t capture.

…

After the winery tour, and dealing with all the transit to get back into Santiago, we went to Fuente Alemana for dinner, a restaurant that had been recommended to us. We ordered our food, and asked for two bottles of water, sin gas, naturally.

We laughed about that, and recounted parts of our day, more at ease now after a great afternoon at the winery. We had a lovely time, one we’ll recount in a different post later, as it deserves its own. But the wine was good, as was the tour, and we were looking forward now to trying these sandwiches, as they looked amazing.

We watched them cooking the sandwiches as our waitress brought us our two bottles of water. I opened mine and sighed contently as I sipped the natural, gas-free water. Seriously, why is the carbonated water a thing?

From my left, I hear a hiss, and turn in terror toward it’s origin.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Erika groaned.

She looked up at me. “Run away!”, I said out loud in as high-pitched a voice as I could muster.

We both cracked up, and did the best we could to stomach her con gas water, together.