Estuche de monerías

I happened to mention to a classmate yesterday that I had spent the weekend in Mexico City. Knowing that he was Mexican, but not knowing where exactly where he was from, I bounced through the outline of our weekend and showed him the pictures, mostly from Puebla, that I had managed to print that morning in the darkroom.

Little known to me, IR is from Puebla and was on the verge of tears as I flipped through my photographic interpretation of his home, his zócalo, streets he used to frequent.

Why didn't you tell me you were going?

I am sure I told you I was going!

No, no, you didn't tell me! You could have packed me in your bags!

And thus went the conversation, in circles, for a good ten minutes in the computer lab, in Spanish, while everyone around us was a bit confused. IR found me later in my office where I was grading and desperately hoping for distraction. We cleared up the whole "he's actually from Puebla" thing and delved into an hour-long conversation on the hotel I stayed in, where I took pictures, what I did, where I ate, what I ate (tacos, mole, tacos, tacos, mole, tacos), etc. I took out my pictures again and began to talk about printing them that morning.

You printed them yourself? IR asked me incredulously. You're like an estuche...

I looked at him rather perplexedly while he tried to work the memory out of his head. There's a term that Mexicans use for someone like you...estuche de monerías. It finally came to him and I laughed; I'd never heard the term before, but I love the image it conjured.

Literally, it means case of beautiful, assorted things, but it translates roughly to "jack of all trades". Though I've never found that description in English particularly flattering (the whole "master of none" part that follows), I don't really mind being an estuche so much.