The Brazilian Fairy Tale

Shawn, the first day in Sao Paulo, outside the hotel room and
*Harry*,....er, "Rod", looking fierce...

*Eduardo* and Shawn, at a sidewalk cafe in Sao Paulo...still looking a little peaked?

Once upon a time there was a girl, trapped in a woman's body. Her name was Shawn and she loved to stay up late, travel a lot, eat whatever she wanted and sing in bands. She didn't care if she sang as the front singer all the time and even enjoyed singing with a Rod Stewart Tribute Band as a backup singer. She got to travel with this band and really enjoyed herself immensely, as she:
1. Could get away for a few days
2. Could sleep in without having to get anyone up and fix breakfast and get anyone on the bus or out the door.
3. Could shop a bit by herself with no one in tow.
4. Could read and spend some alone time.

So, when *Harry*, her "Rod" lookalike informed her that they would be going to Brazil, she was very excited. Now, granted, she would have been more excited if it would have been to Europe or something, as she had traveled so little outside the States and one of the ONLY places that she had ALREADY been was Brazil! But she counted herself lucky and looked forward to the trip.

A few weeks after making the arrangements, Harry called her to tell her that they needed to go to Boston to get their Visa's for Brazil, and told her what to bring. She got her extra passport picture at CVS, (a $7.99 expense, even though she never used it), took her passport, money to pay for the Visa and went downtown with Harry to stand in line at the Brazilian embassy. The person that was taking care of all the arrangements was the saxophone player for the band in Brazil, so he was Brazilian and spoke Portuguese. He lives in Boston most of the year and flies back and forth to work and see his family, etc. Well, long story short, he was late to the embassy, so Shawn and Harry stood in the wrong line for an hour before realizing their mistake, then after getting into the right line, were told that they had to come back to pick up their passports a week later. Since this was a pain for both Shawn and Harry, the sax player, *Eduardo* said that he would be glad to pick them up and bring them to the airport when they flew out.

Two weeks later, Harry and Shawn were on their way to the airport, four hours early, as Harry was afraid that they would be held up because it was an international flight. They were supposed to meet Eduardo there, get their passports and get on the flight together, along with Eduardo's small toddler, that had flown back and forth from Brazil since he was born.

They got to the airport, but Eduardo did not show up as planned. He was running late, had had a fight with his wife and had to take a taxi. Harry and Shawn had a leisurely, but stressful snack at the airport deli for 3 hours until Eduardo rushed in at the last moment. It was close, but they made the flight.

Fast forward to the arrival. There were two people waiting for them when they arrived in Brazil, and they were whisked through customs, and taken in front of all the lines and after getting their luggage, (where the little carts are free, so EVERYONE pushes them around---they need cart traffic lights) they were put on a helicopter to Sao Paulo. Shawn thought this was the best trip ever and felt a little like a celebrity, as she flew for the first time in a helicopter. It landed on one of the biggest banks in Sao Paulo and Shawn and Harry met the man who was having the party that "Rod" was singing at.

The celebrity status continued as they were put into a Lincoln Town car, chauffeured by a driver, and sporting bullet proof dark windows. They went to their hotel, and got ready for their rehearsal that afternoon. Since neither Harry nor Shawn had eaten much for the last 12 hours, they ordered a salad to be brought up to their separate rooms. When it arrived, Shawn thought that it was the weirdest salad that she had ever seen, as it had canned corn on it and canned peas, and several pickled questionable vegetables, but she was hungry and forced it down anyway.

The next day, Shawn and Harry were given lunch at Eduardo's mothers house, where she served some Brazilian chicken dishes and some lovely fresh fruits. Both Harry and Shawn enjoyed the fare and threw caution to the wind as they ate lettuce, mango and grapes. But, wait a minute, Harry didn't eat the freshly washed purple grapes, but Shawn did.

That late afternoon, after relaxing and walking around the shops a bit, Harry and Shawn prepared to get ready for the sound check. They arrived at the huge penthouse apartment rooftop where workers were building a makeshift roof, and a glass floor to cover the pool, so that the band had a place to play. The party decorator was there and everyone was in a great mood, except Harry, who was steaming a little bit about the bass player in the Brazilian band that couldn't seem to get any of his songs right... Meanwhile, Shawn started to feel a little ill...

It started off as just a few little gas pains, a little uncomfortable, as Shawn hadn't remembered to bring the Tums. As the sound check begin to commence, she had an urgent desire to visit the restroom a few times, but it wasn't too serious yet. After the sound check, in the Town car, she mentioned to Eduardo that she needed something to settle her stomach ache, as she had some gas pains. Eduardo assured that he would send something over to the hotel from the "pharmacy", which is a wonderful place that you don't need any prescriptions for any medicines. Now the reader must understand that Shawn trusted Eduardo, as, so far in Brazil, he had taken care of she and Harry and since they didn't understand what anyone was saying, they HAD to put their trust in someone!

When Shawn got back to her room, and tried to get her clothes together for the show, and take a short rest, it became increasingly clear that her bowel system was getting worse. She had to keep running to the bathroom and only felt better for short periods of time. It was at this time, to her relief, that someone knocked on the door, saying that they had some medicine from the pharmacy for her. "Whew," she thought, "just in time!" She took the medicine and proceeded to peruse it. There were about four things in the bag, with a receipt. There was a bottle of something, some pills that you push out, two pills in a small box and something that looked like cough medicine.

As you can imagine, she was quite overcome by all the medicine that Eduardo had sent and she thought that he had certainly covered all the bases... So, not knowing what each thing was, she thought to herself, "Well, surely the most powerful of these medicines would be the most expensive!" So she looked at the receipt and discovered that the two pills in the small box were VERY expensive, so she took one.

At that moment, (seriously) the phone rang. It was the hotel concierge telling Shawn, in broken English, that the pharmacist had delivered the wrong medicine and could he come and get it back?

"WHAT?" thought Shawn, "You've GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! What did I take?"

Ok,...so the pharmacist and the concierge came up to her room and looked over the medicines, and calmly told Shawn that she had taken a form of Viagra....
No problem, said the pharmacist, it would just make her happy....

Two hours later, as Shawn was standing at the edge of the stage, getting ready to go on, and knowing that she had to run back to the bathroom AGAIN, as she was sure that it was coming out of both ends this time, she DID NOT FEEL EVEN A TWINGE OF HAPPINESS!!

She ran back down to the dressing room, said a quick prayer, literally spilled her guts out one more time, returned to the stage and the show went on!

Five days later, after an exhausting plane trip back to the States, making a quick call to the doctor, getting PRESCRIPTION antibiotics, flying to Utah, and having a constant stomach ache for four days, she sat with her new G-babies and her daughter....and heaved a big sigh of relief.
Now...she felt HAPPY.

Moral of the story: Don't go to Brazil without medicine for diarrhea.
Don't eat ANY fruits or fresh veggies while you're there.
Viagra is overrated....at least for women.

*Names were changed to protect the guilty and the innocent.*