Granny Goose and .50 Shoe Shine

For many of us that have, or who currently live in the US, we might think that all of Latin America has Mexican food. (Hey why not, it's so good, everybody should have access to good Mexican food, right?) Wish that was the truth. Most of Latin America not only doesn't have it, they don't care that they don't have it. (I do) Well after a few weeks on the, no Mexican food train, I start to get a hankering for some of the stuff. There is a pretty good Mexican resturant here in Cuenca. But it's not like back home. When they serve you chips and salsa ..... let's just say the chips, are a bit different.... not bad, just not what we are all accustomed to. How can I describe them...........? After tasting them and doing a through inspection of the chips, you might think they bought a bag of Fritos, and then decided to refry them. (As if they didn't have enough grease already, yeah they are greasy) Anyway.... I was at a new to me, or different, grocery store the other day, checking out the options in the Foooood department, and guess what I see? Bags of ..... tortilla chips (you probably thinking Heilig is loosing his mind, getting excited over tortilla chips) .... But you see, just when I though all hope was lost, for finding anything Mexican in the grocery stores, they there are. I had to take a double look because it said tortilla chips on the bag, but I thought, it was just going to be another case of false advertising. So I grab the bag, and they really are tortilla chips, and what's more, even though I can't taste them yet, (there in the bag) they look, like the real McCoy! Auuuh chip! Then I notice something very interesting, there is a Goose on the bag. (bring back memories?) And the Goose has a bonnet or in this case a sombrero (Latin version) on her head. Yeah, it's Granny Goose. I though she had died, (I haven't seen GG in stores in years) and was waiting to be resurrected. (They teach, animals will be resurrected down here.... just kidding ;-) So I started thinking of the last time I can remember GG being in the states...... any of you remember? .......... When we had "Food Service" at the District Conventions. It seems we JW's were keeping the Goose from flying south permanently for all those years. Once we stopped the Food Service arrangement at the conventions, Granny decided to go South permanently. And for that, we down here in the land of poca comida Mexicana are very thankful!

.50 Shoe Shine

So today, I have 30 minutes to kill before the next task I have to get taken care for the Aduana (Customs) fiasco. (Yup ... still working on it) My "helper" called yesterday and told me, he forgot to have a statement made, signed by me and notarized while I ran around with his "helper" on Monday, so I get to kill even more time today, on what could have easily been accomplished then. (how fun) Anyway, back to the shoe shine story. Down here shoes take a beating! (Brent, Aaron P. we in agreement?) Everything is rough, and your shoes take it on the chin ... I mean sole. So I decide to cruise on in, to the place where the guys on the street, do the shoe shines, here you can sit down and enjoy the shoe shine experience. You sit and put your feet up on the little pedestals, and sit back and enjoy the ride. However, these shoe shine seats, are not like the discarded thrones of Kings past, you find at the airports in the states, where you sit 3-4 feet off the ground, to give you that real kingly feeling....... Aaaaaanyway, I sit with confidence that in 5 minutes my puppies are going to look "good as new". So the guy first of all brushes them off. (That's what my dad taught me was step one, good start) Next he pulls out a bowl from under the wanna be throne, and starts to rub some sort of liquidity substance that is close to the color of my shoes, and at first, it looks shiny (loved that) but then when it dries it get all chalky looking. (I'm thinking, oh wonderful ... I know this guy doesn't have liability insurance to cover my ruined shoes) Then he grabs another bowl of liquidity stuff this time in black, and very carefully, goes over the soul portion of the shoe all around the sides and back of the shoe so as not to get the black on the what used to be brown, but is now chalky leather. (I could just see it, nice black sole with chalky leather brown undertone shoes walking down the street..... great, these babies are going in the garbage) Then he proceeds to get the can of what looks like, could be polish, but he makes me think he has some magic concoction some even more secret sauce and starts to rub that, all over the brown portion of the shoes being ever so careful, so as not to get the brown from the shoe upper part on the black he put on the sole. ( I'm thinking, what does it matter, they are RUINED) After putting the brown on the leather upper of the shoe, it doesn't make a bit of difference in the way the shoes look, there still chalky and I can still see the scuffs, that I went in have hidden by the MASTER shoe shine man. Then, he has oooooone more application of some stuff, but nooooo, difference. Finally, ..... he gets the brushes back out, and starts to buff .... and buff .... and buff, and he makes those shoes look like new! I was sooo happy they weren't ruined, I gave him a .50 tip on top of the .50 he charged me. Lesson for Bill: the guy had been, no doubt doing shoe shines for many years.... if he had ruined a lot of pairs of shoes during that time, he would have been out of business years ago. Wait until the job is done, before getting ready to turn in a liability claim.