My Own Little Peyton Place

While the actual Peyton Place was in New England, I think I've stumbled into my own little corner of it down here in Central America.

If you're not familiar with the 1956 novel, here's a link. It's basically a "fictional" expose of a small town in New Hampshire. And while I haven't discovered any of the incest, abortion or lust of the novel there's plenty of murder, thievery and people running from the law down here.

Or as my Mom puts it, "It's like Peyton Place but without the sex."

Making the social rounds with my Mom, I've heard much of the same "bochinche" (Panamanian for gossip) over and over again--although I'm still looking for the Internet expose of the Ex-pat community in Vulcan.

So far, there's been everything from the extreme:

• The US Marshals coming to Boquete last month to extradite a Wisconsin man who had been fleeing for years from a child sex abuse conviction
• The recent capture of "Wild Bill Cortex" near the Costa Rican border. Apparently, he and his girlfriend, both avid weigh lifters and white separatists, have confessed to killing at least 5 people in order to steal their property. Property laws are much different down here--basically whoever has the deed owns the property even if there's no bill of sale. Ol' Wild Bill rented a house that one of my Mom's friends later bought and there are some mysterious lumps in the back yard near the ocean. It's kind of a morbid inside joke that she might have bodies buried on her land.
  

To the mundane:

• One American absconded with $8,000 in checks from another little old American lady he went into business with
• The Canadian handyman who works for my Mom was cussed out and called a thief by another drunken Canadian after she blacked out and forget she lent him the car
• Two old lesbians spent half the night telling me about their past lives and their energy fields
  
• One young American couple I met confessed to me that they weren't monogamous and that she was a burlesque dancer back in the States (what is it about being abroad and having people tell you TMI)?
• One old lady, who is a friend of my Mom's and who is a major shopaholic, bought 40 bras at once and has now decided she needs to get rid of them. She asked me what size bra I wear right after I met her and then promised me some. I don't think I'm going to hold her to that promise.
  
• The Canadian handyman who works for my Mom told me he had been on a diet and tried taking that Herbal Chinese Diet tea but it made him get severe diarrhea when he was driving and the only thing he had to wipe himself with was his friend's shirt which was in the backseat. Needless to say, said shirt was thrown out along the side of the road. Again with the TMI!