lupe learns Cervantes

The maids came in the other week. The two of them were all shy smiles and cleaning products. The shorter one, named Lupe, told me that she had just visited family in El Salvador. Her father had fallen off of a horse and almost died. I told her that I was sorry to hear that. I told her that I wished him well and reminded her, rather sternly, to work harder on the toilet than last time. (It was getting a little hard-water stain.) I told her that if she didn’t work harder, I would have to create another dark circle. The dark charcoal circle, I explained, had a powerful gris gris and would do her father more harm than last time. The fault is yours, Lupe, I lamented. I wish that you had only worked harder. She sat up suddenly, her face pale. She clutched the toilet bowl brush firmly. I gesticulated grandly with my cocktail, in a manner that certainly looked like a bon vivant character from an Oscar Wilde play, telling her, “Lupe, if you will recall from the Cervantes, ‘Truth, whose mother is history, who is the rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, example and lesson to the present, and warning to the future, teaches all things.’” Her eyes widened slightly. (Perhaps she didn’t recall her Cervantes?)

She apparently had no idea that a hard water stain could endanger the life of her loved ones.

Well, she’d better get it into that thick skull of hers: Don’t mess with the Jblend’s bowl. Just clean it up real good. Or else.