A Short Story: Ukulele, New Friends, and Free Dulce de Leche

Reason No. 13647899300 that I will never not bring my ukulele with me.

Long story short

It was a super bright and sunny day, I had just finished class, and because of the area of the city I was in, I though I would stop by a little specialty store called La Casa de Dulce de Leche that specializes in one thing.

That's right. You guessed it.

Dulce de Leche.

Because it was a beautiful day, you already know that of course I had my ukulele strapped to my back.

Also, you know that there are few things that I love more than talking to strangers.

So, when I made it to the store and immediately make a friend in the employee enabling my out of control sampling session, after a few minutes of tasting and talking he noticed my ukulele case.

After talking about how long I've been playing, how I started, and how fundamental ukulele is to my life in Buenos Aires, he made a comment about wanting to hear me play sometime.

"I bet you play pretty well"(Translated from Spanish) - the employee who was tasting as many dulce de leches as I was at this point.

So, it's only logical that I made a joke about dropping all of the stuff I was carrying to sit down and play some ukulele right then and there in the middle of this dulce de leche store where a million customers had suddenly walking in.

I didn't think he would say yes.

Within a minute I found myself sitting with the uke, completely exposed, between two pyramids of dulce de leche, wondering how I ended up like this.

Because this is a real store and my new friend is a real employee, he was rushing around doing his job, trying to take care of all the customers that had very inconveniently just walked in. But every 30 seconds he would come back to me to tell me that in a minute he would be ready for me to play, even though my presence was very obviously a distraction at this point.

But I was trying to help out a little by giving my best recommendations to some English-speaking tourists in the meantime.

After a bit, I noticed that my friend had disappeared, and had already starting thinking about how fast I could pack up all my stuff and rush out of there when he came back with a smiley young woman who wasn't previously in the store, but clearly was not a customer.

Without really knowing who she was or where she came from, we are started talking and laughing again and I decided it was probably about time that I finally played the ukulele so I could at least a slightly more pleasant distraction.

The girl turned and asked someone to turn of the music that was playing overhead, my new friend took out his phone and started recording, and I ended up playing through my entire Spanish repertoire because after one, my new friend teasingly asked, "What? You only have one?"

You know I can't just have one.

So, after several minute of giving a mini-concert for everyone present, I decided that I should probably get going so everyone can actually do their jobs before I got anyone in trouble with their boss.

My new friend and the smiley young woman were gushing with happiness and, of course, I was secondhand gushing with happiness in response as they told me to come back at any time.

As I was kissing everyone goodbye and promising that I would be back with some new repertoire soon, I finally asked the smiley girl if she also worked there, because I really hadn't noticed here being there when I had walked in.

She laughed.

"Why did she laugh?..." - my brain

"Actually, I'm the owner. This chain," she said gesturing, "I own with my brothers. This is my business."

"Oh my gosh I just played for the owner of all of the Casas de Dulce de Leche???" - my brain still not keeping up

And I think it was obvious how surprised I was by all of this, because she kept laughing as I was low-key freaking out about casually playing ukulele in La Casa de Dulce de Leche for THE OWNER.

Laughing a little as I was still freaking out, she turned to the pyramid of dulce de leche beside her as she was talking, picked one off the top and told me "I want to give this to you."

Literally what.

I couldn't believe any of it.

As if I could possibly be bursting with any more happiness at this point, I hugged and kissed everyone goodbye one more time as they all told me that they would be anxiously awaiting for me to come back, and walked out of that store laughing way too loud for the street, in complete disbelief.

The ukulele really is some kind of magic, isn't it?

That right. You guessed it. Dulce de Leche.