Heading west after their visit to Big Bend National Park, Mr. Patel and Mrs. Katel pondered where they would rest their heads that night. Looking at the map, the logical destination was Las Cruces, New Mexico.
But then Mr. Patel remembered the time they got lost in Las Cruces, and he had no desire to repeat that experience.
“Why don’t we stay in one of the smaller towns near Las Cruces?” he asked. “There may not be as many amenities, but it will likely be less stressful.”
“Okay” said Mrs. Katel. “Let’s give it a try.”
So they found themselves in Deming, New Mexico, population around 15,000. Mr. Patel and Mrs. Katel had some experience of small western towns, so they had some idea of what they were in for.
And sure enough the town more or less fit their expectations. A chain motel at one end, just off the interstate, fit their humble needs to a tee. There were even laundry facilities to wash their grungy clothes, covered with Big Bend dust.
“Is there somewhere in town where we can stock up on supplies?” Mrs. Katel asked the desk clerk. Sure enough there was a Walmart just down the road.
So after checking into their humble room in the humble town they took advantage of the daylight and made the short drive to Walmart.
To Mr. Patel it looked like any other Walmart anywhere else in the country, with all its good and bad points. But to Mrs. Katel there was something distinctly wrong with the place. To use her terminology, it was “starting to bug her.”
Mr. Patel tried to wrap his mind around his wife’s suffering, and what he came up with was this: every time they went down an aisle in the store, some people - maybe an entire family - appeared out out of thin air, thus obstructing their path. This seemed to be happening constantly.
Mr. Patel agreed that this was distressing, but that in the grand scheme of phenomena it was something he was prepared to deal with. Not so Mrs. Katel. To her, this was dealbreaker material.
“Land of Enchantment my ass!!!” she screamed in the middle of the Walmart, so loud that it was followed by a deafening silence.
The motto of the entire state of New Mexico was on the line.
A very well dressed man appeared in front of us, and he introduced himself as Enrique Calderón, manager of that particular Walmart. He invited us into his office.
I was impressed with the Old World furnishings of Enrique’s office. Lots of dark wooden furniture, carved in the Spanish style, and red velvet drapes on either side of a picture window looking out on a fantastic panorama of mountains and desert.
“Please” said Enrique. “Have a seat.” We positioned ourselves on antique chairs worthy of Queen Isabella.
Enrique quietly poured what appeared to be a very fine old bottle of port into two snifters, which he handed to me and Mrs. Katel.
“I have a rancho on an island in the Sea of Cortez. I would very much like you two to be my guests for the coming weekend. Don’t worry about expenses, I will take care of that entirely.”
The offer seemed very generous to me, and since I’ve always had a soft spot for the Sea of Cortez, I enthusiastically took up Mister Calderón on his offer. We all clinked our snifters and drank a microscopic sip of the fine old port.
The next day a car came to pick us up at our motel. Enrique made arrangements with the motel and the rental car company - the vehicle would be kept safely at the motel and cost us nothing.
What followed was a combination of car, airplane and boat ride that happened so quickly that before I knew it we were on Enrique’s island.
Enrique himself met us at the dock where the boat let us off. He greeted us warmly and led us to the ‘casita’ where we would be staying, which was located next to his house. A swimming pool separated the casita from the main house.
Enrique invited us into the main house. The furnishings were reminiscent of his office in the Walmart in Deming. He silently poured us small amounts of what appeared to be very fine old port.
“Salud” he said as we clinked our glasses and had a microscopic sip of the fine old port.
“Put your bathing suits on” he said. “We don’t want to miss the vaquitas.”
Vaquitas of course are the rare, endangered dolphins that inhabit the Sea of Cortez. After putting on out bathing suits, Enrique led us back to the dock where we arrived. We noticed three kayaks ready for embarking.
In no time we found ourselves in kayaks floating on the Sea of Cortez. Enrique said “Follow me around that point”. In about five minutes we rounded the point.
There in what was a fabulously configured cove, part island and part mainland, we were surrounded by frolicking vaquitas, hundreds of them, leaping in and out of the water. It was a splendid sight on a splendid sunny day, colorful and refreshing, with blasts of fresh salty sea and air.
In this way the unpleasantness of one bad experience at Walmart was resolved.
- copyright 2019 by P.T. Gachot
