90 or 180 days

We had lunch with my friend George the other day.

We decided to eat at Marchans, the all you can eat fish plate. It's pretty good, in my opinion the best all you can eat fish in Puerto Isabel. The tourists don't really know about it (yet), maybe the Winter Texan crowd does, but we don't eat there a lot in the winter time. The fish is light and flakey, with a killer potato salad (or fries), cole slaw and roll. Washed down with a giant glass of ice cold iced tea, well, it's one of the things that make living here in the summer time bearable. We usually sit by the window which overlooks the harbor so that I can admire all of the boats, especially one lovely little ketch on the middle finger.

The tourists stick to the glitzy places like Pirates Landing and The Lost Galleon, and that's fine with me.

Anyway, we noticed George and Scarlets van parked out front as we were going in. It had the utility trailer attached, with a freezer strapped down, and I wondered if they were doing a little free lance hauling along with eco tours and the nature center.....

Marchans was pretty crowded, the waitress told us we could eat over in the far room, where there was only one other family. On the way over there, we passed George and his friend Sam, getting ready to have the famous all you can eat fish. We stopped along their small table, and they invited us to sit, but being as we're all sort of big, we invited them to our table, which was much larger. George said they'd be over as soon as they got served as things were moving pretty slowly what with the rush, and they wanted to get their food first.

After a bit they came over and sat down, and we started catching up on things. George comes from a pioneer family in Port Isabel, his father ran one of the early ferry boat services to the island, long before the first causeway was even built. George has carried on in the tradition as a boat captain.

So naturally, a good deal of the conversation had to do with boats and the seafaring business. Most of the non-commercial work here revolves around the tourist trade, things like eco-tours, para-sailing, fishing, dolphin watching and party cruises. George has seen and done it all.

He chartered out to a bunch of McDonalds executives who were in town to celebrate the opening of the new McDonalds on the island, when it was first built years ago. He took them out, and they caught fish, they caught a buzz and in general they caught a good time. Afterward, they asked him; "90 or 180 days?".

George was bewildered. "90 or 180 days, what?"

"90 or 180 days terms for payment, that's the way it works, and by the way, where do we mail the check?".

George thought about it for a minute and replied. "Oh, I see....so that means that every time I want an order from McDonalds, I can just drive through, pick it up and ask the person behind the window...90 or 180 days?".

"That's how it works right?"