The Ice Queen

So I was chatting with that Mexico Way today after having read her most recent post regarding her almost-5-year battle with getting gas. As long as I have known her she has had this issue, and it's not something that you can fix, like, by doing something different or learning past lessons or anything like that. It just is. When I lived there, I was lucky enough to have stationary tanks and a landlord who had it regularly filled. I don't know if she had to call them or check the tanks or if there was some sort of account, I just never had to deal with it. It was a non-event. I turned on the water in the shower, hot. In the kitchen, SCALDING hot (just remembering how hot that kitchen water was hurts my hands). Wanna make some noodle soup? Turn on the stove, light the flame and boil some water (starting to sound a little like Sandra Lee, aren't I?)! I think the whole time I lived there as a non-working year-and-change tourist I really didn't have THAT many issues - no water in the afternoons for a while or two, lost power during a rainstorm now and then, couple of falls up and down the stairs, nothing major.

My re-entry into the US, if you recall by reading the archives from February 2006 (because I am not linking to it), really was difficult because of PEOPLE, not necessarily stuff one has to deal with. Obviously moving from the US TO Mexico is a huge transition, but honestly, my biggest issues were more like what the hell is that thing squirming around under my shoe or OH MY HELL Jose is NOT coming down, quit yelling you have been yelling for him for 25 minutes already! Stuff like that. I didn't really miss much of the food aspects, I didn't have to go to work, I never had problems with taxistas (well, once I did, but that was really someone else's fault and my own irresponsibility for not knowing it cost more to have two destinations), I had money for the most part and any issues that came along didn't put me in any real harm's way. So the only thing with coming back to the US was the whole people-are-assholes-who-the-hell-do-you-think-you-are thing. Oh, and geting a job and having to get up and shower at least 5 days a week. That was a challenge. No hammock hooks. That sucked too.

Anyway, getting back to the point (I guess) of this post was that in reading that MW's blog and then chatting with her, I told her I really didn't have those kinds of issues. Except then I thought about it for a minute and realized, I guess I kind of did.

The second time I moved back to Mexico, one of my jobs was to hang out and wait for the various deliveries that a restaurant-bar gets on a somewhat regular basis. The Pepsi guy, the beer guy, the liquor guy. I didn't know where ice came from until it became my job to order the liquor, the vegetables and the ice. One early afternoon we were dangerously low on ice, and Joe asked me to call them. I wrote down the two numbers on the ice freezer in the back and called from the land line by the bar. I called the first number and said to the guy that answered pretty much right away, in my crappy Spanish (but you know, how hard is it really?), I'm Joyce from My Place... the guy instantly hangs up. Okay. I have had plenty of people hang up on me because I have tried really long involved sentences in Spanish and, not having any kind of sing-song lilt to my voice, people have hung up on me out of exasperation at not understanding. Fine. But you know what? I'm calling YOU, I need something from YOU, that I am going to pay YOU for, so don't fucking hang up on me! I called back the same number, and no answer. It rang about 6 times, and I hung up and called the other number. No answer. I called the first number back and let it ring about 15 times, before I just laid the phone down and went and took care of some other things. When I came back the phone was still just ringing away on the other line. I imagined them across town staring at the phone and wondering when it would ever stop. I had time. I really didn't have anything more important to do. So finally I gave up (I think we had to run into town or something, imagine that), and told Joe yeah, figure something else out for ice because they clearly don't want our order. I think we considered picking some up from the supermarket or something on our daily run, but really, with no air conditioning in the van and with the way traffic is it really wasn't an option.

Later that afternoon, back at the restaurant, I spotted an ice truck in our lot delivering to the Oxxo next door, so I ran out and asked the guy if he had any I could buy from him. He told me, your order is coming tomorrow. I looked at him like he was nuts and said, ... how? I haven't placed an order. To which he explained, you said where you were calling from when you phoned, and we know how much you normally order. Your order will be delivered tomorrow.

Okay. So you can't say, Okay, thanks for your order, we'll deliver it tomorrow? You have to just hear the name of the bar and hang up? And then NEVER ANSWER THE PHONE AGAIN? What if it wasn't me calling? How do you survive on one order of ice per day? Is it, like, all the Oxxos in the city and My Place that is keeping you in business? Good Christ. I think at the time, however, I never really mentioned it to anyone, because by this time I was so firmly ensconced in the absolute pandemonium of working for a restaurant-bar in the hotel zone that nothing fazed me. I was beyond being amazed at how ridiculous this was. I was at the other end of the transition scale: I just took it and walked away.

So yeah, I guess I have had my issues like that MW and that Beckla and all you other kids down there. I just guess that it took them less time to beat me down to complete utter submission than it has you guys.