Aftermath

So the dinner is over, leftovers stored, wine bottles emptied and dessert and coffee served.

What do we have to look forward to now?

Oh yes. The guests getting the hell out of our house!

Carlos' aunt and a friend of hers, whose names I will keep to myself--oh hell no, it's Gloria and Luz Maria--arrived on Monday and were staying until Monday, but are now leaving Sunday morning. And that won't come soon enough for me.

It's not that they're awful women--at least one of them isn't, for Luz Maria speaks very little English. But as for the other one, La Bruja (The Witch) as Carlos calls her, can be a demon spawn. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, because she's almost eighty and quite set in her ways, but she can be brutal.

On Tuesday, Carlos took the day off from work and took them to Columbia to go shopping. Carlos. Hates. Shopping. But it was his aunt and her friend, so off they went, for SIX HOURS. He watched them buy key chains, and nail clippers, pens and comb sets, three-dollar T-shirts and anything shiny and made of plastic. I think they were buying souvenirs for all of Mexico City. And upon their return, how thankful and gracious was Gloria? Um.............................Not.

The next day I was off and Carlos worked. I was staying home to do some pre-Thanksgiving dinner prep, but the ladies wanted to go shopping again! I suggested the nearest spot, and offered to drive them down there; I gave them my cell phone so they could call me to come get them. In the short drive to the shopping center, La Bruja must have thanked me, and told me I was the sweetest person ever, about twenty times. But Carlos? Bupkus! Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Thanksgiving Day Carlos and I cooked and baked and set the table and poured the wine and served the dinner and prepared his dessert and served his dessert and cleared and washed and scrubbed and rinsed, and wiped down counters and stoves and the table.

La Bruja? Left the room....but not before she asked in that voice of hers, "Can we have some more heat please? We'll pay the difference."

Where's my gun?

The next day, Black Friday, they ask to go shopping again. On Black Friday! With all the lunatics and soccer moms. Well, Carlos and I are shopping for a new flat screen TV, so we went. We drove into Columbia, to the Target store, and dropped them off while we parked. We walked the half mile or so back to the Target and La Bruja and su amiga are waiting on the curb. "What are we doing here?" she asked. "We have no more shopping to do!"

Again. Gun?

So we let them loose in Target while we looked at Circuit City for TVs. Then it was back to pick them, oh yes, and their purchases up, and head home. Gloria passes out in the sunroom for a couple of hours and, upon waking, asks where we are taking her now. Mind you, the woman doesn't want to do anything but shop.

So, Carlos offered to take them into town and wander through the antique malls. La Bruja agrees, and Carlos gets ready to go. Then she changes her mind and says she's hungry. The she asks us to make whipped cream for her dessert. Make. Whipped. Cream. If I could have made it into a gun and used it, I would have.

Drop everything and feed her. Gun? Anyone?

Again, not a lacquered fingernail is lifted in reheating their food or setting the table, serving, clearing washing..........it's like Groundhogs Day because I'm reliving the day before exactly as it happened the FIRST TIME!!!

They had coffee with dessert. I got the big wine goblet out.

T-minus 41 hours and counting.