(This really happened. We are not making it up.)
Doña Cuevas writes:
"Last week I went up the road to visit and lunch with 2 amigas Norteamericanas coming from Morelia for shopping. I met them at a roadside restaurant we lovingly call Larry's Fish House (because our ex-neighbor Larry liked to eat there when he lived here.)"
(Don Cuevas says: "Mediocre food, great view. They often seem to go together. However, the hand made tortillas are good and the salsa de molcajete can be tasty.")
Doña Cuevas continues:
"I looked out the window, as we sat eating our shrimp dishes, and there
were 3 guys.They were attempting to repair a light fixture high above the ground. Two of them were steadying a 12-16 ft. wooden ladder, with no support, for the 3rd man, who was about 12 ft. up the ladder. He realized he couldn't reach the outside light, and came down."
"I looked out later and there was a Pepsi truck backed up, with the
same third guy climbing up the ladder (which now had its top resting on
the back of the truck) with a plastic chair in his hands. He climbed
up on the chair, which sat upon the roof of the Pepsi truck, but it was still not high enough."
 |
| A Pepsi truck something like this one. |
"One of the other guys brought a sturdy plastic bucket (like a pickle bucket) and pitched it up to the guy on the roof of the truck.
He placed upside down on the chair seat. He climbed up but it was still not high enough, but by standing on his toes he could reach the top of the light fixture and start unscrewing the top part."
"We left at that point, but I'd bet that the fixture was unscrewed,
the man came down off the Pepsi truck with the fixture, the necessary
parts were not available to fix the light, and the Pepsi truck drove
off with driver at the wheel. The Pepsi truck, or a similar truck,
would return another day and the light would be reinstalled, to work
until someone shot out the bulb and the bulb covering."
"It never gets boring around here, at least for me."
"Saludos cariñosos,
Doña Cuevas"
6 comments:
This illustrates nicely the fact that we Mexicans can do anything, anything at all, when we put our minds to it.
Well, except get along.
Doña Cuevas, does your old boy always interrupt like this, right in the middle of your yarns? I hope not.
Now, let us move on to one thing more. Norteamericana?! What's with that? Nobody uses that term. Gringos don't use it. Mexicans don't use it (unless there is an unfamiliar Gringo within earshot). Nobody.
Gringo is a perfectly acceptable word, and I recommend that you embrace it in public. You need not be squeamish about it. I promise.
Felipe, not only did I interrupt, but I had to trim all the less than relevant leading and trailing edges from her lengthy story, in order to make it so the readers wouldn't lose track of the ladder stunt.
Our Gringa friend took a photo of the acrobatics, but the lighting was poor, so I can't illustrate it here.
Saludos,
Don Cuevas
I have a non-safe but works method for trimming my fruit trees. I pull the hay wagon up under the tree, set the ladder up on the hay wagon's bed, fire up the gas powered pole trimming saw, hope for the best. The cuttings fall onto the wagon's bed. Getting the tractor, me and the wagon under the tree is another story-one has to watch that low hanging fruit. stay warm...
Norm, I'm scared to ask what's a gas powered pole trimming saw.
I see: http://www.pole-saws-r-us.com/
You need to get some stunted fruit trees like we have.
Saludos,
Don Cuevas
Gas powered pole trimmer: A small chainsaw on the end of a ten foot long pole-trust me, the leverage is not good.
There is nothing locals can not get done one way or another. Luckily OSHA will not be here for at least 50 years.
Walking down any street in any town in Mexico will attest to either dangerous pothole or exposed electric wires.
What Mexicans do have that Gringos do not, is individual responsibility.
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