A Case of Mistaken Identities

 Mr. Grandquist was a kind man despite his massive bank accounts, but Mrs. Grandquist was about as arrogant and self-centered as a woman can come. The Grandquists had employed Pedro and Juan for about three years now, and overall the arrangement worked out quite well. Juan and Pedro took care of the outside work and general maintenance of the large Grandquist estate, and Mr. Grandquist was faithful to pay them fairly. The only downside of the job for Juan and Pedro was the haughtiness of Mrs. Grandquist. True to their upbringing, the cousins always addressed Mrs. Grandquist formally and politely, but privately they referred to her as ‘la Americana odiosa’- ‘the hateful American’. Mrs. Grandquist always referred to them as ‘the Mexicans’, and her direct address to them was always a command with no niceties whatsoever attached to it.

    One day Mr. Grandquist instructed his wife to have the cook prepare lunch for Juan and Pedro, and although this was bothersome to her, she called down and instructed the chef to prepare "something Mexican with lots of hot sauce" for the Mexican workers. Juan and Pedro appreciated the delicious food, but they chuckled to themselves at the amount of habanero chile sauce that accompanied the dish. They knew Mrs. Grandquist had a hand in that.

      It was a Friday and Mrs. Grandquist was particulary agitated. It seemed that some long-lost important friends were coming to visit, and Mrs. Grandquist had to make sure everything was perfect, so instead of doing their usual outside Friday chores, Juan and Pedro were confined to the house to attend to Mrs. Grandquist's unending slew of orders. It was nearing their usual quitting time when the doorbell rang unexpectedly, and, to her horror, Mrs. Grandquist realized that her guests had arrived early. She dutifully opened the
 door and let in a short older man with curly silver hair and a tall middle-aged woman who appeared to be his wife. “The Mexicans will get your luggage and take it upstairs for you,” Mrs. Grandquist proclaimed grandly, “come in and sit down.” “Oh! We just vacationed in Mexico!” exclaimed the tall woman, “what part of Mexico is your help from?” she inquired. “Puerto Vallarta is so beautiful!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I don’t know what part of Mexico they are from,” 
retorted Mrs. Grandquist with a wave of the hand, “we like to vacation in France.” "Ahhh…” said the silver-haired man (he had caught the underlying put-down), “France is nice, but Mexico has such friendly people. Where are you boys from?" the short man bellowed the question in the direction of Juan and Pedro. There was a moment of awkward silence as the cousins stood staring at the confident man. “Answer him!” Mrs. Grandquist barked at them like a mother ashamed of her fumbling child. “Um… well… we are from El Salvador,” Juan managed to get out through his nervousness. Now the awkward silence came from the other side of the room. “You mean you’re not from Mexico?” stumbled Mrs. Grandquist (she would not usually miss a beat like this, but it had been a stressful day!) The curly haired man roared with delight. “They’re not even Mexicans! You haven’t changed a bit, Sally! Remember how you thought that Pakistani family was from South America back when we were teenagers in Canada?” The man continued to laugh robustly. Mrs. Grandquist was not particularly amused at this insight, but she gave a polite chuckle. “Maybe you should ask folks where they are from before jumping to conclusions,“ the man suggested, “I bet you’ve been feeding these ‘Mexicans’ extra hot sauce when they don’t even eat that stuff!” The thought of this sent him into another round of laughter. Mrs. Grandquist turned to look at Juan and Pedro rather sheepishly only to see small grins tugging at the corner of their lips. “Honestly, Mrs. Grandquist,” Pedro said, “we went home in agony the day that cook fed us all that hot sauce!” Suddenly, the atmosphere broke, and Mrs. Grandquist began to laugh aloud along with the others. “And I bet you call me ‘that hateful Americana’ when I am actually ‘that hateful Canadi-ana!’” Now Pedro and Juan took on the guilty looks, but soon everyone was melting into laughter. “I tell you what,” said an oddly good-natured Mrs. Grandquist, “how about I just call you Juan and Pedro?” Juan and Pedro shook their heads in happy agreement. “Now there’s my smart sister,” exclaimed the short man, “now let’s all go eat some Mexican food- minus the hot sauce!”

Photo credit: wikimedia commons 

Forbes Johnston from Winchester, UK

The Uglies

 

I am tired of the Uglies. Maybe you also have seen them hanging around. Honestly, they seem to be everywhere. Even worse, it seems like every human being has an Ugly or two hanging around with them. Some Uglies are extremely obvious; you can see them from a mile away, but other Uglies hide behind a pretty curtain. With time, they will always peek their little heads around the curtain to peer at you and the more you look back at them, the uglier they seem to be. The saddest part is that some of the ugliest Uglies I have ever seen are the ones staring back at me from the mirror. Sigh. It gets discouraging looking at all these Uglies in the world. You have probably met a few of them too. They go by names like selfishness, violence, disloyalty, manipulation, boasting, abuse, gossip, criticism, disrespect, apathy, deceit, anger, betrayal, unfaithfulness, corruption, oppression, greed, unkindness.... oh, and there are a whole lot more of them! The tricky thing about an Ugly is that it takes on the face of the person who carries it, so we say that Mary is a gossiper and Kyle is greedy, and we fail to divorce the person from the Ugly. Mary is afraid and Kyle feels inferior, so the Uglies jumped on their backs for a free ride. Mary needs affirmation and Kyle needs support, but the power to love them lies dormant when all we can see are their Uglies. 

Picture credit: Ben Crowder, Wikimedia.com