According to the lunar calendar, Holy Week falls one year in the month of March and another year in the month of April. They were festivities that originated in past centuries, promoted by the church, to pray and fast, with the objective of bringing us closer to God. Over the years they became tourist festivals, to enjoy the beaches, their natural beauty, and the delicious fish dishes, with salad and boiled cassava that are sold on the shore of the beach. In this context, around 1985, my brother Miguel, a lover of the failure, invited my husband, Efrain, to partner us in a business for the high season on the beach of San Luis-Cumaná-Venezuela with a hot dog cart that was ours, he had decided to sell it for lack of time to take care of it. When he arrived home he explained to me everything about the proposal my brother had made to him. I told Efrain about it:
"My brother is conflictive. In the years I have been alive I have never seen him come to a happy conclusion with the businesses he has organized." He replies:
"I am going to give him a chance by associating with him, maybe this one will be different". In order not to contradict him I said.
"All right," and I asked him:
"Where are you going to get money to buy all those materials?". He answered me:
"I will pawn in a pawnshop the electric fumigator, With that money I solve".
By then we already had a car, so we decided to tow that fast food cart to the beach. Efrain got the money at the pawnshop. With that money, along with Miguel's, they bought all the materials for the business.
On Holy Wednesdays we would go to the beach with the whole family, I was in charge of cooking the fish, salads and yucca and serving them to the customers. My husband would serve the sausages and my brother would accompany us. Our children enjoyed swimming at the beach. In the evenings we returned home with the cart and trailer with all the leftover material.
The first day was great. The second day we did the same operation and it was excellent, we returned home in the afternoon.
On Good Friday we returned early to the beach in the same conditions, serving meals to customers, when it was 12 o'clock in the morning, under an incandescent sun, with the sand scattering in the environment to the rhythm of the wind that blew, and then deposited in our eyes. The beach, with its natural charms, was full of tourists. My brother began with distrust to insinuate that we were stealing it, and in a matter of seconds he made a fuss, his attitude embarrassed us so much that we did not take the bill, but Miguel, very angry with his face unhinged with anger shouted:
"I'm entitled to a third of the profits!".
Everyone passing in front of the store stopped to listen to his rant. Then I said to my husband:
"Give Miguel all the money and collect all the curls, while I go to the beach to get the kids who are swimming." When I brought them back, my very angry husband said to me:
"I have done what you ordered me to do, now what else do I do!". I answered him
"Start the car, put the trailer on it and hook it up to the Hot Dog car." The kids and I got in the car and drove back to our house with the only thing we had left from that business, half a large plastic container of mayonnaise. My husband lost the fumigator, we were left, as they say in popular slang, with the boards on our heads.
From that experience I had with a family member I learned a lesson:
if you know a person bites, why help them by giving them a hand?
This is a non-fiction story
I hope you like it
the drawings are mine
use deepl translator