by Kathy Brasby | Mar 9, 2020 | Humor, Stories, Travel
“What do you think this says?” my husband studied a small box he’d lifted from the shelf at the grocery store. “Do you know any of these words?”
We were in a grocery store in Nogales, Mexico many years before Google Translate was available on our phones.
Translation was apparently my responsibility on this shopping excursion, so I browsed the ingredient list.
Browsed in the sense that I tried to put letters together to make words. I knew the letters, but I didn’t know the words.
“Well, this picture could have something to do with an antibiotic,” I said.
His frowned. “That picture could be a pumpkin for all I can tell.”
He was right. The printing was not clear.
We should have brought a translator, but the available ones weren’t available. They were tending to our son’s wounded knee.
Our family had come to Nogales for a week to repair a church building. Somehow, in the construction, our son’s knee had connected with something rough and hard. We had been sent in search of antibiotic cream while they cleaned the gash.
We went, confident that we were reasonably intelligent adults. A bit too optimistic since we were in a Spanish-speaking country where we didn’t know the word for antibiotic. We didn’t even know the word for first aid or bandage.
Finally, we settled on a slender box that appeared to have an image of a wound along with the brand name printed on the front plate. It could have been a logo of a whirlwind, too. We weren’t sure, but there was a tube in the box. Close enough for the clueless.
We took our find back to the church and handed the box over to the nurse. She pulled out the tube.
Sometimes you wish you had a translator and you don’t. Sometimes you have a translator and wished you didn’t.
She translated for us then. In between giggles.
Instead of buying antibiotic cream for our son’s knee, we’d picked up a tube of Preparation H.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jan 13, 2020 | Family, Humor, Stories, Travel
The reason the boys were ready for me when I pulled up in the big van was what they held in their hands.
“We found these!” Saber unfolded his palm to show me a rubber ball on an elastic band.
I’ve seen plenty of rubber balls. I launched a jaded smile, and then he threw the ball down. It bounced high over the building roof with the elastic band unfurling into the blue sky before rebounding and then caroming again. This little contraption had more energy than a litter of hungry puppies when mama pokes her head into their view.
The boys had finished a week at church camp, and I was bringing home a gaggle of eleven-year-olds. Assuming a gaggle is seven. A well-entertained gaggle of giggly boys.
Each of the boys launched a ball above timberline, filling the air with giggles.
I could see the potential here.
“OK, guys. No bouncing the balls in the van.”
They all nodded, and their arms went into hyperdrive to exhaust the rebounds before they loaded. No tree top was safe in the flurry of rubber spheres.
Finally, we loaded up and pulled away from camp, making our way down the mountain. All was well until I pulled up at a stoplight in a little town partway home.
Traffic was heavy, and I had been watching cars surround us, pressing close in the rush hour. Then I noticed snickering from behind me. High-pitched joyful laughter. Monkey laughter. Or a gaggle of boys giggling.
Saber had worked his arm out of the side window, holding onto the elastic band. And he was bouncing the ball on the street.
The bouncing orb careened between stopped vehicles, skimming over the edge of side mirrors and radio antennas. It soared with abandon above SUVs and smart cars, ricocheting from curb to curb, defying gravity with its joyous leaps.
That ball was having as much fun as Saber. If it had a mouth, it would have been emitting monkey giggles.
Saber heard the growl coming from the driver of the van. Me. Growling.
It took him a minute to retrieve the ball after I threatened to dunk him in the lake if he didn’t get the contraption back inside. Reeling in the saggy strap took a little while as though it didn’t want to return to the dull confines of the van. Maybe a little like Saber.
Then he rolled up the gadget and stuffed it in his backpack, giving me a smile fit more for angels than gaggles of boys. His bounding ball had kissed the clouds that day. He had explored wild freedom with a blue sphere.
And he reminded me: “I didn’t bounce it in the van.”
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by Kathy Brasby | Sep 9, 2019 | Family, Humor, Travel
This story is true. I know this because the person who told it to me heard it from somebody who might have been part of the story. Or not. You know how that goes.
But it’s a good tale so it ought to be true. This is the influence of the internet on our lives, by the way.
This account took place in the early 1970s when polyester pantsuits were becoming the rage.
A pastoral conference was held on the border between Texas and Mexico. Three pastors from Iowa took their wives to the seminar. The men went to the day’s meetings, and their wives went shopping in the border town of Mexico.
In those days, beautiful leather goods and silver jewelry could be purchased even in a pastor’s salary. The women wandered from booth to booth on the downtown streets.
While shopping, the wives found themselves along with several other women swept up by police and thrown into the local jail.
It seems that prostitutes in the early 1970s in this little town had also embraced polyester pantsuits, which was, of course, what the Iowa wives were wearing. Looking stylish and all that.
So the pastors’ wives looked like the local prostitutes.
The police were doing a routine roundup. The prostitutes went through this often. They all had their license for their business and soon were all released with a small fine.
And there sat the Iowa women with no prostitute licenses. If you’ve ever bathed a cat, you have an idea what their mood was. Fangs could have been bared, but the police were playing cards in the other room.
No license, no release.
So the women cooled their heels in the Mexican jail all day.
When their husbands finally got out of the day’s conference, they had to do some searching to figure out where their wives were. But they eventually traveled into the little border town.
“Get us out of here!” their wives said, all nice like that cat with soap in its eyes.
So the pastors went to talk to the police chief. He was firm: no license, no release.
There was probably help through the US Embassy or some other US agency, but it was already night.
“We can’t stay in this jail all night,” the wives said. Their narrow eyes warned the husbands of dire future repercussions. The men needed no imagination to understand.
The husbands agreed. This jail was no place for their stylish wives. Offers of money to the police chief were spurned. He was a law-abiding police chief. No bribes allowed.
So the husbands huddled. Surely their conference had strengthened their problem-solving abilities. Three heads ought to be able to figure out a solution. They brainstormed frantically above the growls coming from the jail cell.
The men came to a solution and made a pact: no one could know, especially their wives.
And that’s how three pastors from Iowa bought Mexican prostitution licenses for their stylish pantsuit-wearing wives.
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by Kathy Brasby | Aug 20, 2019 | Humor, Stories, Travel
Our family has had some fantastic travel opportunities over the years, including spending a week in Cuba. Imagine that we took two teenagers and loads of video equipment into Cuba and didn’t lose anything. Although you could debate that.
All week we had seen El Morro lighthouse and castle across the harbor from Havana, and finally, we found time to visit.
El Moro Lighthouse, Havana, Cuba
From our hotel, we hailed a government-approved taxi which drove us in a cute little Russian car to the parking lot of El Morro. The uniformed driver promised to return in two hours to take us back to the hotel.
Promised. No problemo.
The tour went great. The hosts inside were friendly and helpful.
We bought a few trinkets and then headed out to the parking lot to wait for our promised taxi driver.
We knew the chances of him returning weren’t great, but we’re polite Americans, so we waited.
Three young Cuban men approached us. “Do you want souvenirs?” They pulled out a silver coin. “See? Che Guevara.”
“Not interested.”
So the three men stepped away. I suppose stretching your neck and looking far down the street is probably a universal signal. They quickly figured out we were waiting for a car.
“Do you need a ride? We have a car. Cheap ride. Only $10.”
We’d paid $6 for the taxi ride over so my husband wasn’t paying $10 to these guys. They tried to negotiate but finally agreed on $6.
The windows of the driver’s car were all down, and the driver rushed ahead to open the door. We thought he was helpful.
He was but only because there were no outside handles. I know, I know. Red lights should have been flashing in our brains.
We climbed in and buckled up. There were no liners on the door panels, and we could see all the rods running to locks and windows. We kept our hands to ourselves.
The little car scooted down the highway and then dropped into a tunnel under the harbor. As the car began to descend, the driver pushed in the clutch and turned off the engine. We coasted to the other end of the tunnel.
I’ll bet he saved a tenth of a gallon of gas with that trick.
He started the engine once gravity threatened to stall him, downshifted, and sailed right through a stop sign.
In Cuba, taxi drivers needed special permits to serve foreigners. Our driver had no taxi permit and no permit to take us anywhere. I think his idea was, once you break one law, you might as well break a bunch.
I don’t know what the speed limit was. It seemed irrelevant to our driver. Might as well break another law. We did stay on all four wheels.
He cruised up to our hotel, double-parked in the narrow street, and shut off the engine again. Another tenth of a gallon saved and another law broken.
He jumped out to open our doors because apparently, the inside latches on the doors needed a secret twist before they’d open.
We paid him. In that country, he may have just made half a month’s wages.
We’d just taken an unlicensed taxi ride with an illegal driver in a foreign country and we lived on.
But I gotta be honest. We came away with our possessions and our teenagers, but I think we left our minds somewhere on that lighthouse.
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