Abierto? Cerrado

About the only Spanish I picked up from Sesame Street as a kid. It's a beautiful, hot, clear skied, sunny day here in Southern California; no rain in the forecast...so I decide to finally get my car washed because, between you and me, I hardly recognize it anymore. Poor neglected thing. Imagine my surprise when I pull up to the local car wash, expecting it to be swarming with traffic, and wondering if I should wait until after I pick my kids up from school because sometimes it can take longer than expected, and....(cue High Noon music and throw some tumbleweeds in for effect)...empty. Closed. No entry. A ghost town. Cerrado.

What was I thinking? How could I forget? It's the May Walk Out day to support the immigration cause. I don't know how I possibly let it slip my mind, considering it dominated the news all weekend (it literally did). Did anyone know that there was a rally in D.C. this weekend to bring attention to the wholsale slaughtering of an entire race of people taking place in Darfur? It would be hard to know since it barely got a mention in the news because it was much more newsworthy to pontificate and supposition about whether or not this walk out would hurt or bolster the support for the immigrants....but I digress.

I did find it interesting, since the opponents of the immigrant movement seem to think that U.S. citizens would be happy to do some of the jobs that our Hispanic compadres are willing to do, that there wasn't one cringo lined up at the car wash to do that job. They must have known, unless they forgot like me, that those jobs would be available to them today, of all days. Where were the folks clammoring to get the job done? To get paid? Oh whitey were art thou?

Hmmm...they must have forgotten. Yeah, that's it.