My old friend, the green bus stop, shows itself just around the bend. It's strategically placed in front of a church, coffee farm, and a coffin store. The stop always has some interesting characters meandering around. Sometimes a cat, this time cows, and usually some Costa Rican grade gypsy children running around. The coffin store is fittingly decrepit, the coffins are placed on wobbly unfinished shelves and no signage is posted to indicate that they are for sale. The front of the store has no fence but a tiny gate connected to nothing, and usually a few sullen men sit on the ground in front of it. I cannot imagine a less inviting place to square yourself with the dead. Which is probably why I love coming here when I'm in trouble. I don't mean trouble in the 'I had a bad day at work' or 'my date didn't show up'. The kind of trouble I'm in, is the kind of trouble that most people spend their entire lives avoiding. It was a mere hour and a half ago when Master told me to get lost and don't come back until sunrise. What I did, since you're wondering... is fail. I failed the most important task of any day by being unable to repeat what Master had just taken the time to explain to me...
We're eating lunch, plantains, salad, and steak. Lunch is delicious, on time, and things are seemingly okay. The plantains are excellent.
"Are the plantains made with butter or oil?"
My question first reflects some comical looks and then a story from Master. The story is about when his grandmother served soup to her guests during Communist Romania. Someone asked her what is in the soup and her response was meat. I remember to smile as Master tells us the story and the mention of a ration on meat makes me wonder...
"Why did the communists so successfully organize beautiful construction in Romania but not meat for the people?"1
"Because the communists didn't want to"
"How come? Doesn't meat make people stronger and happier?"
"Vegetables make people stronger and the communists don't care if people are happy, like me."
A comparison to how the people of North Korea are expected to show up and smile when it's their leaders is presented.
"Yes, but North Korea doesn't actually produce anything."
The wheels in my bimbo brain starts turning...
"Are social work projects required in order for a government to be classified as communism?"
Master begins to quickly explain interesting differences between communism, socialism, and pantsuitism . My mouth is open and I stare off in an attempt to both understand a new concept and memorize it at the same time. I failed and therefore am left with a string of inaccurate ideas --
"Violence is monopolized in communism, projects are in a closed circuit in socialism (at this point I vaguely recall Master explaining that something else operates in a closed circuit. My small brain can only remember him saying closed and open while moving his hand back and forth.), and individuals have property rights in pantsuitism . You know, feelings are cared for and people are important. Socialism and pantsuitism can overlap."
Then a question was asked to me by Master to which I could not answer. I asked him to repeat the question, which he kindly did but I still could not give an answer nor repeat the question.
Which brings us to the bus stop in front of the coffin store on my full day of failure.
All that being said, I have to come with a disclaimer in that its obviously not word for word what was said by any party. Wouldn't it be nice if you could trust a bimbo to accurately remember and report? I wish I were a better person, in a lot of ways but until then, I'll have a notebook.
- This because we were just in Romania and I saw first hand at how great the bridges are -- especially high in the mountains. [↩]