A Time to Wait

Just before leaving Oaxaca, I booked a facial at a little place down the street from our home stay. I arrived at the correct time and waited for the esthetician. After 15 minutes I asked the receptionist if I actually had booked an appointment. She said that I had and that the esthetician had gone shopping. The receptionist called the esthetician on her cell phone.

Well, I thought -- Mexico works in strange ways. The absent woman finally arrived, I eased onto the table and she began her work. After a few applications of this and that, she applied a mask of clay, added wet compresses to my eyes and left the room. I heard the outside door open and shut. She'd disappeared. I lay there for a half hour listening to the sounds of silence, the clay well hardened and cracked when she returned. She asked me without a bit of irony if I'd enjoyed the rest. I hardly knew how to answer her. My dose of time the Mexican way.