When Canutito walked into la cocina esa tarde, Grama Cuca was leyendo de la Bible. He tried not to bother her porque he knew de que she was muy religiosa. Canutito crept closer to peer over her shoulder y él vio que she was reading del chapter donde some people were questioning Jesús about heaven. They were preguntándole que si if a man had two wives, in heaven, ¿con quién would he be reunited y pasar toda la eternity, with la primera or la segunda?

Canutito decided de preguntarle a Grama Cuca in order to see if she was esmarte también just like Jesús en la Bible.

"Cuando un hombre dies, grama," Canutito began, "will he also have two wives en el cielo if he had two viejas aquí on Earth?"

Grama Cuca took off her glasses and closed la Biblia. She looked pointedly at Canutito antes de hacer clear her throat and speaking. "Pues esa es una good question, m'hijo," she prefaced. "Pero 'wives' are not 'viejas'; 'Viejas' are old ladies y some of us like to think of ourselves más como 'goddesses'. Pero getting back to your question, m'hijo, I think de que in heaven there will be no earthly relaciones of any kind."

Pero en ese momento Grampo Caralampio walked through the door. "Eso no es verdad, Cuca," he corrected her. "Si un hombre has been married twice aquí en el Earth I think que en el Cielo he will be reunited to the second wife y su first one will be a skull that he will carry around en la mano para toda la eternidad just like you see some saints haciendo."

"¡Mientes!" exclaimed Grama Cuca, toda beside herself. "It's bad enough de que aquí en la Tierra the first wife is already la escoba y la segunda wife is the señora. It doesn't seem fair to me de que in heaven the first one will still be the broom and the second one will be the lady."

"There is no reason to get toda mad, Cuca," Grampo Caralampio continued teasing her. "En esta casa you're la única señora." He tried to give her un besito on the cheek pero she pushed him away and brushed off his kiss.

"¡Ay!" Grama Cuca continued ranting. "I just get so tired de que algunos hombres always putting down a las women. I remember cuando yo estaba in school when I was young. No matter what I tried to do, algún muchacho was always finding fault con todo and criticizing. Whenever I was wanted to jugar softball los muchachos didn't like the way I held the baseball bat. They would call out: '¡Si no estás dándole el hachazo al marrano!' and make me all nerviosa."

"Did they really think that you were giving the death blow to a pig, grama?" Canutito asked her.

"Probably not," Grama Cuca replied. "They just wanted to criticize me. Why, a veces they would even yell out: '¡Si no estás partiendo leña!' and laugh."

Canutito smiled to think that his grama used to hold the baseball bat as if she were going to chop wood. Pero he decided que perhaps she had seen demasiado criticism toda la vida y que she wasn't going to put up con eso anymore.

Grampo Caralampio just then happened to walk into el cuarto. He had un dolor de cabeza. As he massaged his head trying to drive away his headache, he asked Grama Cuca si perhaps ella had some aspirinas to relieve su dolor. She told them where to find the aspirin in the medicine cabinet. Pero grampo wasn't looking y instead de tomar aspirins, he drank some old birth-control pills que una visitor had left once under the bed.

Pues que grampo retained water for a month. Grama Cuca would laugh sola to think de que grampo had taken píldoras pa' no tener baby-itos and got todo bloated. "Ahora sí," she whispered to Canutito, "tell me quien está smarter, los hombres o las mujeres..."

¿Le gustaría compartir sus propias anécdotas o comentar con Torres sobre esta columna? Envíele un correo electrónico a lartor@unm.edu