The Gawkish Return of Karma Killer

It's been nearly a year since I propped the laptop on my crotch with the intention of authoring anything longer than a pornographic search query, and it's unlikely anyone was less entertained for it.  In fact, I can only conjecture positive repercussions.  I've probably delayed the onset of carpal tunnel. My groin no longer bears the characteristic charring of overheated, antique laptop.  I've avoided thousands upon thousands of opportunities to incriminate myself.

I'll wake up in a few hours, throw on the shirt, tie, and pants combo selected before bed, and show up at the office an hour late -- at earliest.  I'll log into Facebook, refresh my news feed for whatever number of hours remains in the day, and get ghost the second the office's fastest clock slides to five o'clock. The only thing stifling my urge to strangle myself with the cord running keyboard-to-hard drive is the conversion of my direct deposits into units of pupusa.  (I figure another forty to fifty years of Microsoft Office Suite-enabled deception -- spreadsheets always a quick click away, NY Times' articles copied-and-pasted as Outlook draft emails -- and I'll be able to employ a live-in pupusera.  You've gotta have dreams.)

Having been home over a year now, I must admit I love the United States.  I love the comforts, the cleanliness.  I love not having to stuff wadded bills into the lint-crowded recesses of various pockets to combat the dexterous fingers of pickpockets every time I step onto public transit -- which in my city is, unfortunately, infrequent.  I celebrate every condom expended without theatrical and fabricated professions of love or commitment.  I drink to and with girls on birth control, and I sleep soundly when they pick up their scattered garments and kiss me goodnight in the doorway.  And if I down five too many many-times-hopped-high-gravity pints and pass out facefirst on pavement, at least nobody will subsequently scold me for "practically inviting" organ theft -- even as our overzealous legal system exacts an equally debilitating toll.

And yet I'm signed up for every. single. iteration of airfare price alert for flights into any Central American capital from airports within a one thousand miles radius of my residence.  I can recite monthly rainfall averages for an array of cities I plan to revisit.  Plus I'm significantly cockier than ever before, and armed with eighteen months of Latin American travel expertise: backpacker chicks > local chicks.  Technically, that's not sex tourism, so you can still charm grandma and the parents hiring you to babysit with that same noble smile.