Volume 10 - Issue 1, February 15, 2008 - Lake Chapala Review

Page 42 Lake Chapala Review
February 2008
The Last Laugh
by Diann Gilster
One evening sitting on our veranda, a cold Margarita in
hand, and totally in awe of our surroundings, and loving
life, our world suddenly jarred with loud, distinctive
whamp, whamp noises. My significant other and I
looked at each other, bewildered. The noises were very
close…in fact, right in front of our house. We listened
for a bit longer, and Bill, being the investigative half of
our domicile, got up out of his chair.
“I’ll go check it out…don’t drink my Margarita.”
The man has an amazingly long memory about some
things, and is by nature rather suspicious that way. It
was a standoff between him leaving to investigate until
I uttered my promise. “I won’t drink your Margarita.”
So, Bill left, and making no sound. The whamps
continued outside the stone wall. He slowly eased open
the door and looked to the right. The sounds were
identified. We have a huge, 35 ft mango tree just inside
our stone wall. Of course, a tree that size has quite a
branch spread so it covers half of the street. For years, I
suppose, Mexicans have enjoyed the mangoes off of our
tree, and rightfully so…the tree belongs to Mexico, to
the Mexican government, and to the Mexican people.
No problem there. We were happy to have this tradition
continue.
As Bill peered out of the gate, unseen by four middleaged
señoras, the whamps were louder. Two of the
women had long stick poles and were swinging at the
mangoes in the tree. As the mangoes fell, the other two
women were picking them up into their shawls. But
sometimes, only sometimes the stick pole missed the
tree limb, and the swing of the stick abruptly stopped
when our truck took the hit. There were a few soft
giggles at this point, and probably a few oops, in Spanish,
of course. And yes, the mangoes themselves were also
contributing to the truck sounds after landing on the
hood from a 10 or 15 ft drop.
Bill quietly closed the gate. He came back to the
veranda agitated. Curses, why had he parked the truck
under the mango tree? What a quandary: We are in
our new country and we’re facing a God-given right of
the local people to get those mangoes out of that tree.
Thoughts of the Ugly American flashed in my head. But,
our truck! What to do?
Realizing the enormity of the problem, I too became
unsettled. I even went so far as to reach for Bill’s
Margarita, but thankfully caught myself. Trust is such
a delicate issue in a relationship. And I had to stay on
track here.
As Bill walked in circles on the veranda, beating his
chest, crying out, “What should I do? How can I stop this
and still be a ‘good’ guy?” he suddenly stopped dead in
his tracks. There, lying on the table, he spied salvation.
He picked up the remote alarm for the truck.
Without flinching, he pressed the panic button. As the
horn sounded and the lights flashed, we heard shocked
squeals and some oh, ohs, from the women. And then,
over the stone wall, were the departing tips of two tree
poles, bobbing erratically down the street. The senoras
were horrified that they had set off the truck alarm. As
Bill turned around, triumphant and justly proud of his
victory, he caught me putting down his empty Margarita
glass.
We’re both still enjoying our unintentional last laugh.
The situation was defused in a warm and caring, nonconfrontational
manner, yes? And further, we like to
think the senoras are still laughing: they were as they
rounded our corner and hightailed down the street,
adrenalin pumping perhaps just a tad faster than their
legs, with their bounty tucked tightly in their shawls…
hoping not to lose their mangoes.