Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program...

In an effort to tastefully cover a large eyesore of a water heater in a medical consult room, we ended up having to make a trip to the Mexican Joann Fabrics with the offensively early christmas display. The situation in the medical room was much like what one might see on the once too hot to touch television program Trading Spaces. For the sake of helping you to imagine the setting, i was like Ty Pennington, the ruggedly handsome, hip, semihomosexual (but still straight), skilled carpenter. Calen was that bitchy chick from the show no one could get along with (pick one). And we had to somehow tie together an untreated concrete floor, a raw tin roof with visible wooden cross beams, a dangling electrical system, a bamboo partition wall, and a 1000 gallon industrial water heater. But we're that carpenter and that bitchy chick and nothing was gonna stop us from succeeding.

Naturally fabric (along with blood, sweat, and the manly kind of tears that burn babies' skin if they touch them) was a big part of the solution, hence the visit to the fabric store. Every fiber or my body was screaming boycott. Viva la revolucion. But we didnt have a whole lot of alternatives and we were under a very strict, self imposed deadline to make it as much like the show as possible. Thats actually where we'll leave off for the redecoration, save to say that it was a monster success, so much so that we're in talks with a major network about doing a new show called El Extreme Pueblo Makeover. That entire story, based loosely on the truth, was nothing more than a setup to tell the tale of the fabric store.

The buearacracy and process of making a purchase at this store is something that would make the commanding officers at a World War II Siberian gulag envious. I walked into the store and sorted through the hundreds, no, billions of rolls of fabric in there. Once i sorted through all the reflective Virgin Mary and sequined Mr. Banana Grabber fabric and found a nice subdued, neutral earth tone perfect for disguising monstrous appliances i was faced with the task of finding someone who worked there. Make no mistake, in the end it turned out that they had a massive staff, they were just all dressed as customers. Then there was the Spanish thing. Since my main area of experience in the language is medically related, it was exciting trying to figure out if they had eyelets to facilitate the suspension of the piece of fabric i intended to purchase, from a curtain rod. We sorted that out. No, was the answer. And the nice muchacho cut the fabric for me, then spent 12 minutes trying to figure out which price matched the fabric he had just cut, failing to notice, even after it was pointed out to him 3 times by yours truly, that the price was actually on a large sign attached to the exact roll he had cut from. He had pulled from his back pocket a small crinkled master list, in which he clearly placed a lot of trust, that i can only assume he received directly from the hands of Sra. Joann herself. Once he found the price on the list, he cross referenced it with the massive in your face price printed on the sign and all was well in the universe. He then went over to a little machine tucked in a far corner of the store and, while referencing his master list, printed out a little piece of paper with a bar code on it. This he handed to me and then escorted me to a booth in the center of the store where he left my piece of fabric, and me, without further explanation. I followed him for a moment like a small, lost puppy before i realized that he had lost interest in me. Needing nothing else from the store, i went to the booth in the middle where my desired item had been requisitioned. I asked the lady, who didn't acknowledge me if i could pay for the fabric. Wordlessly, she pointed to a different booth in another part of the store with more employees dressed like humans. There was a glass wall dividing me from the employees inside the booth, making them a little easier to identify. But the glass was only about 4 and a half feet high. So when i approached the lady at the counter and she asked me for my ticket, i naturally went to hand it to her over the glass. I had forgotten that people in this part of Mexico rarely reach a height of 6 ft. But i was promptly reminded when she pointed to the bottom of the glass where there was an opening in the window that i was supposed to slip my ticket through. I obediently completed the transaction using the opening in the fabric store cashier area sneeze guard and was handed a different piece of paper. Left to figure out for myself what to do, my street smarts kicked in (thanks, Compton) and i made my way back to the POW booth in the center of the store where I traded my new piece of paper for my fabric and a different piece of paper. Now if all that seems a reasonable way to prevent theft to you, i will now reveal a pertinent detail. The store is small. Standing in any given place in the store, you can see every bit of the rest of the store, making this whole process unnecessary.

As I was leaving I saw a matching shower curtain that I just had to impulse buy as it would work great to cover up what was essentially a brick cave in the consult room. And it was only $3 US keeping us well under our budget so we still had money left over for designer paint and a handmade salvaged barnwood armoire that would be perfect to hide all that unsightly medical equipment, like an MRI machine. This shower curtain already had a barcode and a price on it so I was certain it would be a much simpler process to purchase it. I even had exact change. But like a bunny rabbit near the highway with an unfortunate affinity for headlights, my certainty was mashed to chunky pulp, guts splattered across the thoroughfare. And the Mack truck to my certainty was the same helpful gentleman who had so helpfully helped me before. As I went to pay for my purchase at the sneeze guard, he snatched the item out of my hands and withdrew to his magical paper printer in the corner of the store. Rinse, lather, repeat. Get it? Cause its a shower curtain. Jokes are funnier if you have to explain them and simultaneously have the opportunity to insult your audience.

Later that night, we discovered what must be San Cristóbal's hardest worked city position. The graffiti removal guy. He was circling the blocks covering up the unsanctioned paint, much of which lacked the artistic merit that I usually reference in an attempt to debate that its better than the advertising or the crumbling city scape that was there before. But he was doing something interesting that I didnt quite expect from a government employee. He was thinking for himself. He was being selective about what he covered. Anything that referred to the October 2nd massacre, or freeing of political prisoners, he simply left alone. He was a think-for-yourselfer in a world of do-what-you're-tolders. It wasnt solely covering graffiti that he saw as the purpose of his job, it was the elimination of extraneous messages, subject to his ideals. Political messages and rememberances remain. There's also a piece of graffiti near our hostel that says "puto hippie." He didn't get around to covering that one either. So i can only assume he agrees. I trust his judgement. He's an inspirational fellow.

Shortly thereafter we found ourselves in a classy Mexican food restaraunt called El Subway. No, wait. It was just called Subway. It was this fantastic little submarine sandwich shop. From what we've been told they actually have them in the states. I will say this. It was the cleanest Subway I've ever been affiliated with. No sarcasm at all. The employees, who clearly worked there, were polite, well kempt, and more aware of cross contamination control than some doctors I've encountered. While in the El Subway ordering, this kid began harassing us to buy his crap. This is a pretty standard event when 3w-ing (walking while white) the streets of México. And even though we weren't buying his criendship bracelets and gum, he put on his best pathetic face and asked for some food. So we got him half of a sandwich. Just then, as if by some sort of ESP his friend (perhaps partner in crime would be more accurate) showed up. So I told him he had to split the sandwich with his friend. They started angling for soda and some chips, so we got that, too. But we drew the line at 64 oz pepsicylinder novelty cup. As the fine employees at Subway were preparing food for the four of us, those snot faced bastards told me that they would let me take a picture of them for 10 pesos each. Compassion overwhelmed me as I thought about how difficult these kids lives must be and so I responded in Spanish, " You're both too ugly to be in a picture, just be happy with the meatball sandwich." Right about then, the food was ready and I had the guy cut it in half to ensure that the both the kids got an equal share of the sandwich as I remember a fear of unequal portions causing me a lot of anguish as a child. As i carried the tray over one kid picked up the bag of chips, Sabores de Soledad, I believe they were called, and the other grabbed both their sandwiches and took off running out the door and down the street. By the time hs friend and I got out of the restaraunt to make chase he had teleported to the corner and was hiding behind a pillar. His friend caught up with him and I watched to make sure he got his half of the sandwich. Then I prayed to the Virgen de Guadalupe (we are in México) to give him an inconvenient, but not severe, case of scabies which she instead gave to a Belgian girl staying at our hostel. Even though the curse was a bit off target, I still marveled at the Holy Virgin Mother's swift response to my request.