Fifty F***ing years old

If you are going to have a fiftieth birthday party, trust me, do it in Mexico.
They know how to throw a party.

Fortunately my fiftieth birthday was while we were in Mexico.

The Coca Cola client and my staff threw me a party. T-shirts that said 50 f***ing years old, not abbreviated, the whole thing, spelled out in Red. They threw the party at a bullfight arena. We had a bullfight with very young steers, not full grown bulls; Mariachis, margaritas and great food.

Let me explain, this is very common in Latin America, everybody has a go, you get in with this young steer and play the brave torero. Sounds safe, but that animal does it every Saturday at different parties, he is not distracted by a cape, he goes straight for you; bruised and broken bones are common, as well as great embarrassment for the “toreros”.

The "bull" is the safest one in the arena, since nobody has any idea of what they are doing, just a cape and your ability to run. It is great fun as long as you don’t get gored, trampled, or thumped. You will though, make a fool of yourself, it is expected.

Since it was my day, I had the first go. The “bull” was confused and went for the cape a few times before he remembered the person was the target. I got out OK, my son helped; he actually attempted to stop the bull, and spent 50 yards being pushed backwards.

Great cheers from the crowd, we were about 200 people there. I felt pretty good and did not have to go in again, thank heavens.

Not too many people got hurt. There were bruises, stepped on feet, ripped pants and foolish looking people, not bad considering we had an ambulance on standby. I think the tequila had a big hand in it as well. God takes care of drunks.

The crowd naturally did the wave, the Coca-Cola wave, what a feeling!

Magdalena, she was our housekeeper, attempted to go to the supermarket wearing one of the t-shirts, the 50 f***ing years one. Fortunately we stopped her in time.

If you are ever in this kind of situation, make sure you go in first; the bulls forget at the beginning and go after the cape, not you, if you are lucky.