I Did It For The Flowers

S0 if you're going to trespass, you should wear your glasses. And I'm not talking sneaky, throw 'em off your trail disguise sunglasses with fake mustache attached. I'm talking prescription eye wear. Because blind ladies like me shouldn't be sneaking across fences without them. The reason: there might just be someone watching you sneak onto their property, and you wouldn't know till you're right in front of them, because you forgot your lenses at home.

It's because I'm slick like that.

So, I offered to water my mother-in-laws plants for her, the flowers we planted at her father's gravesite. I try to go at least every other day to the graveyard here in San Juan. I bring a bucket, which I can fill from a cistern there at the graveyard. The last three days, however, there's been no water. Dry as dust.

Yesterday before I even entered the panteon a little girl stopped me, saying there was no water. She pointed across the road, though, to a ranch and explained that she was getting water from a well over there. All well and good, I thought, you're a cute little girl, you can slip through the barbed wire and no one will care, but I'm a weirdo gringa with a baby in a carry pack, and I doubt I can slip through that barbed wire without getting stuck and then drawing the attention of exactly one third of the town, who will probably come yell at me for trespassing.

I considered it, though.

And I got home, and kept considering it, and thought of those poor, thirsty plants. So today I left Hanix with his grandma, so I could have half a chance getting through the barbed wire. And you know what? it worked. I got right through, with my two buckets, to boot.

But now we come back to the topic of vision and the eye glasses I should have been wearing. Li'l ole me, so proud to have made it through the fence, starts sauntering up to the well, only to realize someone's been standing there watching me approach the whole time.

Ooops.

I thought about turning around right then, but that seemed even more embarrassing, since it isn't as if they don't already know or will not soon discover who I am. And gossip spreads fast in this town, so I sucked it up and said my good afternoons and asked if it wouldn't be alright for me to fill my buckets from the well.

The guy seemed so surprised to see me, I think he didn't know what to say, so he just nodded his head and watched me dip my buckets in the well and then teeter off as fast as I could without spilling the precious liquid.

Way to go, Slick.

So, in the end it all worked out, and I think the plants will survive, but I was sorely embarrassed and will have to find a new means of getting water if the cistern remains empty.

Not so bad. But I have learned my lesson. Don't go traipsing onto private property without my spectacles.