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 middle-aged senoras, 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, non-confrontational 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.
