Deserae and I just finished a seven-day cruise with her family. I very much enjoyed the vacation and had a great time with the Neros.

However.

There were several times when the group’s desires did not exactly align with my own. One time, for example, everyone thought it would be great fun to jump in an outdoor hot tub despite 52-degree temperatures and 30 mph winds.

“What do you think, Dustin? Just for like 15 minutes?”

“I think I’d rather spend 15 minutes strapped to the front of the boat.”

“OK, see you in the hot tub!”

Another one of these moments came in Cozumel. We had a wonderful day in Cozumel. We celebrated Deserae’s birthday at a beautiful beach under a stunning blue sky and ate a delicious Mexican meal. But none of it, apparently, counted unless we could walk away with a souvenir.

Well, you say, that sounds easy. There are thousands of cheap souvenirs for sale at the cruise ship terminal! Just pick up a magnet on the way to the ship! You clearly do not know my wife’s family. For the Neros, “cheap” will not do as long as there is the possibility of “free.” And there is no better free souvenir than the passport stamp.

Until last week, I was unaware that it is possible to get a stamp on your passport if you’re not entering via the airport. But it is! Almost every port has a little guy in a little closet of an office who will stamp your passport if you ask nicely. For free! A FREE STAMP!

So the end of our day in Cozumel turned into a scavenger hunt for the little guy in the little office with the little stamp.

“DO…YOU…SPEAK…ENGLISH?” Deserae’s mom asked the cab driver taking us back to our ship.

“Yes,” said the man who drives dozens of American tourists a day and had been communicating with us in English for the last several minutes.

“OH! DO YOU WHERE WE CAN GET PASSPORTS STAMPED? UHHHHH…PASSPORT. YOU KNOW PASSPORT?”

I discovered last week that Deserae’s mom has a way of speaking to people from different countries that is, ummmmmmm, interesting. She shouts, starts using a strange accent, and stops using the words “a” “an” and “the.”

“WE’RE FROM SUBURB OF CLEVELAND,” she would say.

“Good to meet you,” the other person would reply.

“CLEVELAND IS IN OHIO! BY CANADA!”

“I’m from Michigan.”

Anyways, the driver gave us directions to the passport place, which he claimed was five blocks “that way.” “GRACIAS!” Deserae’s mom said, even though we all knew he clearly had misunderstood, because who why would someone put the passport guy a half mile from the cruise ships?

When we got out of the cab, we continued the scavenger hunt by locating a police officer.

“DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?”

The officer told us we could get our passports stamped one block “that way” at Diamond International. When we got to the Diamond International guy, he seemed puzzled. Why would he stamp passports? But he could sell us a diamond! Would we like to look at his selection of necklaces? No tax! And today only, there was a special on…

He finally pointed us one block “that way” toward a souvenir shop. The souvenir guy didn’t have a stamp, but he could sell us an unlicensed NFL Lucha Libre mask! No? Fine, the passport stamps should be one block “that way.”

Of course it wasn’t. It soon became clear that this was an elaborate trail laid out by shop owners in cahoots to drum up business for each other. As we got farther along this trail, we started discovering the “real” Mexico. The cruise terminal presents a view of Mexico that, I don’t want to say was “inauthentic,” but we did get dropped off at a Hooters. Now feral cats were following us. At this point, Deserae’s teenage sister Breanna started taking charge of the scavenger hunt.

Breanna would run ahead and ask a stranger for directions. She was out of earshot, so I can only write what I assume the conversation to be, but I’m guessing it was something along the lines of, “Hi desperate-looking man! I am a skinny white girl that is just out of reach of my parents who – between you and me – I think are overly protective. Anyways, I have a valid American passport! Would you like to hold it?”

We ended up at a restaurant called – I am not making this up – Mary Juana. The guy told us to go one block “this way” and three blocks “that way.” I stopped and looked around. “Are we really doing this?”

I couldn’t stand there for too long, because all the Neros had already forged ahead. “Come on Dustin!” Deserae yelled.

This feels like a good time to tell you about the bags that I was carrying. Deserae packs a beach bag that would cost probably $100 to check on an airline. There are three towels (the third one is in case we want to make a towel animal maybe?), a big yellow float that I am in charge of both inflating and deflating, two changes of clothes because you never know and enough sunscreen to protect a family of albinos living on the equator for a year. That bag was on one shoulder. Slung over the other shoulder was our snorkels, masks and fins, even though the waves were so big that if you jumped in the water, you’d instantly die. Deserae would normally carry one of these bags, but it was her birthday, and for her birthday I thought it would be nice to be a pack mule.

We moved deeper into “real Mexico,” past abandoned buildings and overgrown lots and cartel headquarters. As the Neros forged ahead toward the elusive free stamp, I fell farther behind – the sacrificial lamb with a towel lamb in my bag.

“Come on Dustin!”

Finally, we found the little white immigration building before the banditos could find us. Breanna tried the door.

Locked.

We banged on the door. A round, grumpy Mexican came to the window, glared at the sweaty Americans outside, and pointed to a sign.

LIFE LESSON #102

Just stamp your passport at home. No one has to know.