Happy families frolicked in the many pools of the Oasis Resort in Cancun, Mexico during Spring Break of 1989.  Children laughed and played. Their plastic toys littered the pool decks, and their high happy laughter rang out over the emerald lagoons, I’m sure of it.

I just don’t remember them.

There were kids at the resort that spring of twenty (plus) years ago because kids and families go to resorts. So we can safely assume they were there. There, but completely invisible to me.

I was busy.  I was an undergraduate who had scraped the cake together to duck a brutal New Hampshire winter and was way too occupied trying to get a Tecate at the swim-up bar to notice if I happened to ash on the head of some random eight-year-old.

While we’re at it, if you think of a witty and hilarious quote from Altered States on the stone steps of the ruins at Tulum, do you really need to worry about the sensibilities of some dopes from Dubuque that had (inadvisably) plowed the family savings into a Mexican getaway?  Funny is funny, after all. Let ‘er rip, I always said.

So it is out of respect for the Great Wheel of Karma that I said nothing to the wobbly sophomore dragging his cooler, thump, thump, thump, down the steps of the condo and (presumably) out onto the beach of Port Aransas last Thursday night/Friday morning. Likewise, I said nothing as we stepped gingerly around a generous barf spoor next to our minivan.  Nothing, as I herded the kids out of a hot tub newly occupied by a co-ed giving her Chihuahua lessons in swimming and use of the f-word in all of its grammatical permutations.

I remembered the Spring Breaks of my past, considered of the Spring Breaks of my children’s future, smiled, watched the sunset, and popped a Corona.

We had a ball, and I paid my debt.

With any luck, we’ll be back next year, karma free.