It’s been a pretty hectic week for not having accomplished a whole lot. So far I still am living in the temporary bedroom as the only night resident of the school, I have set the burglar alarm off twice now, I’ve been walking about 5 miles a day or more just to get around and none of the machine or banks will accept my credit union debit card.
Setting off the burglar alarm was a lousy way to wake up. I’m on the third floor and was walking to the other end of the hall to one of the other rooms because it’s the only room with hot water in the shower. OK, just gonna take a shower. Open the door and-holy #@!*&%$@#!#!!!! The alarm bells were going crazy! I ran down to the second floor and entered in the alarm code then walked back upstairs muttering things to myself. About the time I was starting the shower the school phone rang on the extension in one of the other rooms. Realizing this was probably the security people, I ran over to answer it.
Now answering a security service in broken Spanish at 6AM is hard enough-of course, to make things more fun, I was not given the security code password. When they asked my name (and I was supposed to give the code) I nicely said “Jim”, as if that was going to mean anything. They hung up on me—ah, all things better now. Wrong…
As I once again started to get into the shower, I heard all sorts of commotion downstairs as several police cars pulled up with their horns blaring. Oh crap. I wrapped the towel around me and headed down to the second floor classroom where I could go outside on the balcony to greet them. Knowing this is Latin America and that I could likely be greeted none too friendly, especially when they have guns and I have a towel, I meekly leaned over the railing and said a nice friendly, “Buenos dias!”.
The head cop, with radio in one hand and the other on his holster looked up at me with a look of utter amazement. It’s not every morning you get to see some fat, old gringo dressed in nothing but a towel with soap in hand and hair all askew. He tried to look authoritarian but he was definitely holding back a smile. Once again I tried my broken Spanish apologizing for setting off the alarm and once again he asked my name. That was nice of him, I thought, never once realizing that without the magic code they may have the rest of their SWAT guys hiding around the corner.
Of course, it was rather obvious that I had screwed up and that I was harmless-they just didn’t know what to do with me. After an embarrassing silence, I waved, smiled and said, “Gracias-hasta luego!”, turned and went inside hoping I wouldn’t be shot. I guess they were so amused by me and that it was so obvious what had happened, they decided to pack up and go home. Whew.
Well, I finally did get my shower and, since I had turned off the alarm, nothing further happened-until the next evening when it happened again. But that’s another story.
