MAXWELL SMART AND AGENT 99

 

Lorna at the top of the Plaza

After 5 days of not getting anything accomplished except staying out of jail, we went down to the Caesars Plaza Hotel (sounds nicer than it is). A 70's hotel in the center of the city. You can receive a massage for ten bucks, on Wednesday its couples night and you get two massages for ten bucks.  They also have a steam shower and dry sauna and a cold hot tub with moss growing in it.  Any way the massages were great, especially since we were still stiff from our wreck. 



looking west toward Plaza Principal

looking north down 25 de Mayo
 

 Afterwards we took some pictures from the roof then made our way down to DUMBO'S (that's DOOMBOS in Spanish) which is a popular ice cream parlor with at best, mediocre food. 

We sat down and started looking at a menu and ordered coke zeros and nachos.  A lady came up and asked what languages we spoke, we stated Spanish and English.  She was delighted that we spoke English and immediately started speaking to us in English.  She asked Lorna where she got her hair to look like it did.  Jack told her it was cut with a weed whacker.  She asked if she could sit down and did so before we could say yes.  She said, so you are missionaries.  We told her we were, and asked what she knew of the church, she said nothing, but knew that some of us were spies for either the US or Russian government.  We laughed, thinking as anyone would that she was kidding and said no that isn't true.  Jack told her that when he was in La Paz years ago, for awhile he lived across the street from the house of the Bolivian President, and that the missionaries would pull their tape recorders out of their trench coats and talk into them when the guards were watching them, so the guards would think they were CIA. First wrong statement! She didn't think it was funny.  She said she lived with a man for 3 years in Moscow, who was a correspondent with CBS.  She said she now believes he was a spy. We asked her why she thought that, she said she could see it in his eyes.  She rambled on about another guy she lived with that worked for a charismatic church, (like the Mormons!) that was a spy too, because in his church, which was connected to a building for the European Union, that they had a satellite dish.  We both thought, I hope she doesn't drive past any of our Stake centers! That is all the evidence she would need!  She said she lived in Russia during Perestroika, and asked us what we thought.  Jack said maybe they changed too fast, because there seems to be a lot of corruption in their system now.  Second wrong statement!  She pulled back and stared at him and said, "You have given yourself away.  I know now that you are a spy". We were hoping she would leave, having found us out, but no, she stayed and started rambling on about a guy she was living with from Oaklahoma that she knew was a Russian spy, because he got angry with her when she made a negative comment about Russia.   They traveled from Cochabamba to Chile, which should have taken about 15 hours but took a month and a half.  By this time we were thinking no man is going to stick with this nut case for that long.  He probably pretended to be a Russian spy just to get rid of her! She said she hadn't been able to find a job for 10 years. (Can't imagine why!)  Lorna said later that she was afraid to look at me for fear she would break out laughing, the whole situation was so bizarre.  This woman had already eaten so she blabbed the whole time we were eating.  The waitress brought her check.  We asked this woman again what she ew about Mormons and she said little, but cut us off.  

            She went on to tell us that her mother lived in Santa Cruz in some subsidized housing and shared  a courtyard with some Mormons.   Many houses have shared courtyards, and most houses have walls built to the sidewalks with metal gates.  She stated that the Mormon neighbors were spies also.  We asked her why she thought that and she said they didn't have curtains in their windows. And she knew they didn't have them on purpose. That way they could keep track of everyone!  She said one time she was staying at her mother's and a carpenter came to give her a bid on some work.  They were not home so the guy entered the courtyard and was looking in her mothers windows.  She said the Mormons went out and asked the man what he was doing.  They told her when she got home about the man.  We guessed for being good neighbors they were spies.  About that time we could hear the black helicopters hovering over her and were thinking about some other folks we knew that might get along with her just fine.  Jack was just about to take off his shoe and start talking in it when she finally left.  A few minutes later the waitress brought us our check and asked if we were going to pay her check also. We told her we didn't know the lady and that she was bat crap crazy.  She had left without paying, and the waitress was upset because she would have to pay the unpaid bill.  They called their security guard, checked the bathrooms and the rest of the restaurant.  No wonder she has managed to live ten years without a job! She has a real nice crazy lady-Russian spy racket going with a 3D model, Dine, Distract, Dash!  We ended up paying her tab because Lorna has a soft spot for waitresses, since that is what she did the first year I was in law school. We laughed the whole way home and thought the church sure dodged a bullet thanks to our lousy missionary work!