I was excited because I was leaving for a vacation to Mexico to see my mother and the rest of my family; my many sisters and brothers. I must include my excitement about the marvelous food, and what it would feel like to be back in beautiful Guadalajara. I was working until the last minute, and I had a lot on my mind, presents, making sure I was packing the right things, you know, the right shoes, etc, etc. I was at the door to leave, when a city officer hung me up at the door with a pamphlet. After many years in business downtown, this is something very common to receive. Generally, they let you know about current events, like if there is a movie being filmed on the plaza, or if they are planning to close the street for a couple of hours—all those details that the city manages.
So, when she handed me the pamphlet, in a hurry, I also grabbed it just as fast, without taking the time to read it. (My Bad) I just assumed it wasn’t anything too important.
After a few days in Guadalajara, my brother Alfonso called me. He said, “Do you know who is on the cover of the New Mexican paper today?” coming from Alfonso, I thought he was being cheeky with me, I said, “No, I don’t know, Give me a clue?” and I asked him, “It could be Hillary Clinton!” so he raised his voice, startling me, and said, “Nope! It’s YOU!” So I still thought he was kidding around with me, but it was the truth. The City of Santa Fe had come out with an ordinance that you could not have sale signs in the windows of storefronts. And I was like, “What?? This is ridiculous. This is new; I’ve been in business for decades, the whole town has sale signs in the windows. And why would they choose to single ME out? When there are tons of other stores doing that downtown?”
But it dawned on me that I was just caught in the crossfire. So many businesses are in the same boat, doing the same thing to advertise, and I was probably just picked for my popularity (lol). If someone deserved being singled out, it certainly wasn’t me, since we try so hard to be a ‘goody little two shoes’ business.
Needless to say, this kind of news ruined my vacation; since my brother informed me we had these bad articles in the New Mexican and the Albuquerque Journal. The one who got a bigger picture in the paper than me was Alfonso! LOL. I cut my trip short, and as I was sitting in the airplane going home, looking out the window at the sky, I was mesmerized by the clouds, looking like massive waves in the air. I wasn’t too worried, but I was sad about the situation. I knew everything would be ok in the end, but this was such an inconvenience, silly, and bad representation.
The plane started going through deep turbulence, it began to sink down far, which got me quite scared, putting everything into perspective for me: Dying is worse than a city fine! Behind me was a mother with her baby, probably a year old, and every time the plane would take a dip downward, he would burst out laughing very hard. His beautiful giggling took my mind off of the intensity of the situation.
The rest is history, I went to the city hall, talked to the mayor, and the city council, complained about why they were doing this to ME specifically, but as I said, it seemed to be my popularity that singled me out that day!
P.S. Out of this unusual situation, we were impressed by the support we got from the local community; they sent letters to the editors of the newspapers! Since then, that ordinance hasn’t been implemented, thank God.
Mucho, mucho LOVE Guadalupe