Free When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time To Go Home by Erma Bombeck Page B

waterfalls, no buildings of any stature, only the hollow winds that whistle over this barren countryside and those giant, mysterious stone men with vacant eyes rising majestically out of the ground.”
    “Why are you talking like Jacques Cousteau? Look around you! Do you realize we have not seen one single gift shop in this place? I ana supposed to spend four days on an island that has no gift shops?”
    “How can you possibly be bored surrounded by all of this symbolism and mystery?”
    “Look at me,” I commanded. “Do you know what you're dealing with? You are looking at a shallow woman who left while the Pope was saying Mass at St. Peter's in Rome to buy a splinter from the cross on which Christ purportedly died, from a man in the square wearing fifteen watches on his forearm.”
    “Knowing you,” he said, “you'll rise to the challenge.”
    I joined our tour group and rode around in the little buses. I had no choice. We poked around caves, volcanoes, and excavation sites where they were restoring these monoliths, and I had to admit I was intrigued by it all. Some of the statues had been toppled and rested facedown in the open areas. Some were still in caves where work on them had been abandoned. Sometimes there would be groupings of them. A few had cinder hats, others had larger ears. But they all had several things in common. They were huge, had no eyes, and were a mystery to anthropologists who for years had come to Easter Island in an attempt to piece together a culture that had left few clues.
    “You see,” said my husband, “I knew you'd be fascinated by this place. I'll bet you've even forgotten about shopping.”
    “I love this place,” I said, “but if I don't find something to buy within the next twenty-four hours, I am going to become physically ill.”
    Down from our hotel (which had no gift shop) was a large platform on which seven of these statues—about sixty feet tall—faced away from the sea. They looked like giant targets on the gun range of a police academy. Since South Americans dine after ten o'clock at night, it created a problem for me. I am asleep by nine-thirty at night. So each evening at dusk I took a candy bar and bag of potato chips and joined the Stone Seven.
    As I dangled my feet from the stone pedestal, I looked up at them, studied their expressionless faces, and figured they alone held the secret of why Easter Island had no gift shops. It probably had something to do with a woman who gave them bad shells.
    The next morning, I hung around the hotel and asked one of the Easter Islanders where you could buy souvenirs.
    He reported there were many statues and much jewelry made by the natives, but they would rather not exchange their wares for money. He had my attention.
    It seems Easter Island holds the distinction of being the most remote spot on the face of the earth. Its closest neighbor is Pitcairn Island, twelve hundred miles to the west. Therefore, it is often cut off from basic supplies needed to exist. Tourists fly in regularly from Chile, but the cost of sending supplies by air is prohibitive. A ship is scheduled to come twice a year, but they are at the whim of rough seas, and supplies must often be transferred to smaller boats. The carvings could be had for a box of aspirin, a pair of scissors, shampoo, or shoes.
    I could handle that. I just had to know the rules. That afternoon, I visited a man carving statues and dropped to my knees as if I had just found the only crap game in town.
    Before we departed Easter Island, I had a suitcase of beautiful wood carvings of the statues, some wonderful jewelry, and several watercolors.
    My husband left without his running shoes, shaving cream, Swiss army knife, a pair of jeans, a cotton pullover, and his warm-ups.
    If his astigmatism had been right, I could have traded his prescription sunglasses for a beach towel with a monolith stamped on it.
    He asked, “Why didn't you trade your own clothes?” That was the weird part.