Impatient in a Virtuous Country
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Patience is a virtue. I live where
patience is exercised on a daily basis. Therefore I live among a virtuous
people indeed.
I, however, have been found out. I
stand revealed as one naked in my impatience, not virtuous at all. Previously I
would have described myself as patient. More patient than most I might have
said with a hint of a smirk. I might have felt a bit smugly righteous.
If “instant gratification” is the
mantra of people in the United States, then “manana” is the mantra of the
people of Mexico.
Mexico runs on a cash economy.
Mention checks and I receive a raised brow with you-gotta-be-kidding look, a
snicker or outright hee-haw laughter. I didn’t mean foreign checks. I wanted to
open a bank account here and use local-bank checks. It isn’t done. First, I
have to have resided here a year before I may open a bank account. Every bill
to pay, every purchase is by cash although credit card use is becoming more
prevalent for larger items. Otherwise, grab your wallet and count the pesos. One thing
sure, no overdrafts. And you always know exactly how much money you have.
Cash society equates with long
lines. I go to the bank to buy pesos, take a number and wait in line. When
paying bills, which one also does in person, one moves through roped lanes and
eventually arrives at the counter to shell out the pesos.
One eventually develops a tolerance
which becomes an “it-is-the-way-it-is” acceptance. Que, sera, sera.
Finally came the day I waited
patiently in line and signed up for internet. That took “forever”, but
fortunately, I had my interpreter friend with me, because nobody spoke Ingles. Imagine
me doing that task by sign language.
My internet comes by way of
Megacable, pronounced mega-caw-blay, emphasis on caw. I bought a television,
telephone and wireless internet bundle for $399 pesos a month. Exchange rate
that day was $12.40. Uh, huh.
I swore that I would never buy
television service, but I did. In fact, last night my friend and I sat together
and watched the championship fights for Mexico. I had five pesos on the red
trunks. Quite the rousing battle which ended in a tie. Re-match in January. Patience.
The Megacable lady told us hook-up
could take from one to twelve days. I snorted because my neighbor Frank had
been waiting twelve days for his service at that point. “And what time of day
is best for you?” “Morning,” I answered.
Everyday Frank and I met outside our
doors to commiserate. No service yet. On day nineteen for Frank, one week for
me, at 4:30 in the afternoon, the Megacable truck pulled up and two young men knocked
on Frank’s door. I grabbed my paperwork, tripped over my feet scrambling out my
door. “Me too, Me too?” I poked my paperwork at them. One young man scanned my
papers, pointed to Frank, then back to me.
At 6:30 they hooked me up to all the
services, made sure the television worked and bounded out my door. Oh, by the
way, they didn’t have the wireless modems with them; come back manana. Wireless
or cable, what did I care, as long as I could use internet. Gleefully I sat turned
on my computer and prepared to send my article off to the newspaper, deadline
tomorrow. I could not get internet to work. Computer whiz I am not. I fiddled
with this wire and that wire and this button and that clicker. Nothing. I
checked my hook-ups and they seemed okay to me.
Fifteen minutes later Lupe walked in
the door to be met by me, red-faced, sweating, teary and grinding my teeth.
“Your television works perfectly,” I snarled, “but my internet does not work at
all.” Instantly I felt ashamed. “I am so frustrated. Now I’ll have to go to a
hotel or café in the morning to send my article and we’ll have to have the cable
guys come back and . . . “
“Calm down.” I hate it when someone
says that to me. I told him the whole story. Lupe re-checked my cables and
found a couple loose connections, sorted and straightened and tied my spaghetti
mess of wires into order, and, magically, I had internet service. I thanked Lupe
in a teensy-weensy voice.
“I wish you could have seen yourself
when I walked in the door,” he said.
“Oh, I saw myself quite clearly,
thank you,” I said, muttering a hundred “mea culpas” under my breath. I hate
being exposed like that.
Ten days have passed and still no
wireless. Maybe manana.
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
December 19,
2013
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