¡El Chapulín Colorado!

“¡Que no panda el cúnico!” - El Chapulín Colorado

This is a dog story; no mission memoire would be complete without one. But first, let me tell you about a character on a popular Mexican television show; El Chapulín Colorado

El Chapulín Colorado is a bumbling superhero who, in spite of his idiocy, is able to always save the day through slapstick, puns, and because...well...it is in the script. He dresses up in a silly costume with antennas on his head. His superhero name means “the colorful grasshopper.”

The quote at the top of this post is one of his catchphrases. It is the Spanish equivalent of shouting "Pobody nanic!" when you meant to shout "Nobody panic!"

Now that I have introduced you to El Chapulín, I’ll get to the dog part of the story. Don’t worry, this will make sense by the end.

One unusually cool day my companion and I decided to go tracting in a well-to-do part of town, “knocking” on doors. We were happily making our way down the street, getting politely rejected repeatedly but enjoying the walk and the refreshing weather. Eventually we came to a house that had an unusual two-foot-high fence around the yard. There was a 15 foot walk from the fence to their front porch. We stood outside the fence and clapped loudly, watching the windows like hawks for any signs of movement, which we saw. Knowing they were home, but not getting any response, we switched from clapping to yelling out, “¡Buenos dias!” Still getting no response, I decided to step over the low fence, walk up to the porch and tap on the door, just so we knew we tried all our options. Convinced I was wasting my time, my companion waited for me in the street.

SIDE NOTE: Actually, we very seldom physically “knocked” on a door. I don’t think I ever saw a wooden door my entire mission. Almost without exception, doors were either made of sheet metal, or there were no doors on the house at all. If there was a door we would gently tap the metal with a pen or small rock and the sound would reverberate throughout the entire house. If there was no door, or if there were a fence preventing us from reaching the door, we would either clap loudly or yell out “¡Buenos dias!” or “¡Buenas tardes!” until someone came to the door.

After I had tapped twice on the door, I heard a dog barking. It was one of those shrill yapping barks, like a little ankle biter. Not concerned in the least, I tapped again. More yapping, but this time I could hear that the yapping was moving away from the door, towards the back of the house. I turned to my companion to speak, but the look on his face stopped me before I could say a word. In a split second he had gone from that dark shade that Mexicans call “moreno” to a shade I call “ghost,” his eyes wide and fixated on a point to the left of the house, just outside my field of  vision. As I turned to see what was the matter, a dog the size of a shetland pony came barrelling at full speed around the corner, not 5 feet from me. There was a blurred flurry of activity, and the next thing I knew I was standing in the middle of the street with the contents of my pockets littering the ground in a 10-foot radius around me (A pen, my wallet, missionary nametag, pocket-sized notebook, the white missionary handbook and our folding yellow agendas, my vial of consecrated oil and a penknife, to be exact).

The dog had stopped just short of the low fence that he could have crossed without even  jumping. I was amazed at the sheer size of this dog. He seemed to come up to my shoulder when he was on all fours. But what was even more amazing to me is the sounds he was making. Out of his huge beast-dog mouth came a tiny little yap, just like what I heard when I assumed that an ankle biter was in the house.

El Chapulín Colorado, always ready for anything!

After the fact, my companion told me that I leapt from a standstill on their porch all the way across the 15-foot yard, clearing the little mini-fence and landing in the street, my pockets having emptied themselves mid-flight.

Ever since he called me El Chapulín Colorado.