Not to be outdone by their capitalist Megalasaur neighbors to the north, Mexico has adopted the practice of starting the christmas season about the same time as easter. Even here, where not indulging a life of consumerism is less a choice and more... well... the only way to survive, the Mexican Joann Fabrics has already set up a series of window displays depicting the various important events that make up the Christmas tradition. There are little dioramas of Mexican Santas (just kidding, everyone knows Santa is some kind of nordic-martian cross breed) delivering pizzas to all the townspeople and one where Rudolph frees everyone from the crippling oppression of poverty, as long as they promise to buy lots of gifts. But my favorite one is where Mrs. Claus leads people of all ages, races, and creeds in an armed resistance against the secret hand that controls the world, so that everyone can benefit from the holiday savings at Wal-Mart and get lots of stuff for their friends and family and that one guy at the oficina who is kind of weird but buying him a 6 dollar pen and pencil organizer might just spare you from being on his people to kill list. That's right, all these quaint little scenes are already depicted right there in the window of your friendly, local, neghborhood Mexican Joann's Fabrics, ahorita, in October... INSTEAD OF AFTER THANKSGIVING LIKE IT SAYS IN THE GOD ***** BIBLE!!!!!! For those of you who are concerned, those stars are just used to cover up the word bless because the word bless in all capitals is a secret code word for a far right christian conservative plot to take over the planet and make the Christmas season start the day before MLK day and I didn't want any googling to inadvertently include my page in a search for more information about that campaign. Don't worry about my piety. Besides, count the stars. 5 not 4. I would never say god damn bible.
Know what's worse, it's not even just corporate Mexico joining in the charade. We saw a chihuahua, inside a house, a domestic animal, dressed in a little elf suit. If the chihuahua had been a tough ass street dog, maybe the elf suit would have been passable. Like maybe that's all it could find to stay warm. Although even then the logic starts to break down because most kids have barely just said good bye to their slip 'n slides or their los slip 'y slides as the case may be. The search for warm clothes has not yet become so desperate as to merit the use of an elf suit in early october. So **** that little chihuahua and **** the person who dressed him without respect for the law laid out in the Holy Bible. I realize that Mexico is a largely Jewish population, but that's no reason to use your dog's attire as an affront to the some couple hundred Christians in the world.
Speaking of dogs, what description of a place would be complete without an over generalized description of the dog dynamic. So here's the deal with San Cristobal. Its backwards. All the big dogs are nice, cuddly, even if mangy, loveable, usually homeless bastards. While all the small dogs are just bastards. The perfect illustration of this was when we were walking down Calle de Diego Dujelay today, you know, right after Avenida de Cristobal Colon and just befor Maria de Flores, and we saw a big dog laying in the shade minding its own business. We admired its cuteness and then as if on cue a stupid pekinese or some other equally ridiculous breed of dog came hauling its yappy little ass up to the screen door to bark its annoying little head off at us. It showed classic signs of a Napoleon complex except Napoleon was an outspoken frenchmen, not a mexican. This caused us a bit of dishistorganization, not to mention a faire amount of ethnoconfusion. Calen was out of grenades. So we threw the yogurt we had just bought at it. Incedentally, if you ever find yourself in this part of town, check out Lacteos Maya for all your fresh dairy needs. I realize that's a pretty weak illustration, so for lack of a story about getting bitten by tiny little bastard dogs, you'll just have to take my word for it. Big dogs here awesome. Little dogs here suck. I used to watch a lot of Dog Whisperer. I can sense their intentions. So the take home lesson is they'll eat your lungs out of your thoracic cavity given the chance, and they dress in seasonally inappropriate clothing. Stick with rottweilers.
We saw another peculiar sight that sort of concerns rottweilers in a way. Long known for their reliable appearance of intimidation and guarddogsmanship, rottweilers and the traditional guard dog breeds are being phased out in San Cris in favor of an unlikely candidate, the common horse. Thus, their legacy is at stake. I tried to wrap my head around this when we saw a horse that was very clearly guarding a brickyard. But I have yet to figure it out. If I'm not mistaken, caring for a horse is probably on the order of 100 times more expensive than caring for a dog. So the economics of it baffle me. But if there's one things the mexican people are known for, aside from their staunch Judaic tradition, its accounting. So I can only assume that the horse provided some benefit in the area of guarddogsmanship that made them choose to employ the horse over a canine. In a country where a large percentage of people subsist on less than a $1000 per month, a human being with an automatic firearm would probably be cheaper. But again, I have to concede that I'm not an expert at guarding brick yards. So they clearly know something that I don't. Maybe their guard dog started alienating the neighboring businesses like when he walked across the street to buy a taco and told told the taco man "You should call this one a Gob, guy." More than likely though. their guard dog showed up to work in a turkey costume for the whole month of february and a banana suit for Rammadan. Then I could see trying my luck with a horse, or like an alpaca or something. An alpaca with an automatic weapon. Hence the market for chinchilla body armor, which we never found.
Just down the street from the guard horse is a shining example of ingenuity and a triumph of the human spirit. It is a shining example of entreprenuership and diversification so entreprenuershipped and diversified that it would make Jay-Z, Richard Branson, and all the Rockefellers crap their collective pants. It is the San Cris Goldfish and Goldfish Supply/ Wayward Bicycle Parts Sales and Repair Shop. The genius of this store isn't in the juxtaposition of live aquatic animals with random inorganic bicycle parts. It's in the actual store setup. Walking down the street in one direction, one can only see the bike shop half of the store despite the lack of any sort of dviding wall between the two sections. Walking down the street in the other direction, one can only see the part of the store that specializes in goldfish. It actually took a couple days of us walking by the store to realize that they were one in the same and, for lack of a stronger word, genius. Not only that but a quick glance inside and its obvious that the owner of the goldbikefish emporium has positioned himself in the market for a world takeover. On the bike half, despite the myriad piles of parts, there isn't a single complete or even half complete bicycle anywhere to be found. There's a complete bicycle distributed somewhere among the piles, but its up to you, the consumer to assemble it. By utilizing this method of merchandising the business owner ensures that the units per transaction will be ridiculously high, so that quarterly reports to the board of trustees always show favorably for his sales team, indicating his success and prowess as a manager. On the goldfish side, there wasn't a plastic bag to be found anywhere. At first, what seems like a mundane detail about the shop turns out to be the business equivalent of winning a game of chess by kicking your opponent in the groin thereby winning the game due to injury. How are chess, nut kicking, and fish sales related, you ask? Here's how. By not having any plastic bags with which to transport fish, the owner ensures an aquarium sale. You come in for the 5 peso orange floppy swimmy thing and you leave with a 2000 peso complete self sustaining ecosystem complete with marina blue anti algae rock fill, plastic, green, mario bros. water level plants, and miniature, bubble blowing scuba diver, sized appropriately to make the fish feel like a giant thus avoiding the napoleon complex that plagues most of the small animals in the southern part of Mexico. He knows you don't come to the goldfish store to have a look around. They only sell goldfish and goldfish accessories. And he knows you know. So if you're there, you're buying. And you're also buying something to get that fish home alive. Again, sales look good to the board. The company gets the nod to go international. And next thing you know they're putting santa hats on the bubble blowing scuba divers in August because their market research has shown that manipulating the psychology of the consumer public increases profits. Idiots. Everyone involved.
You know who would have seen right through all this manipulative corporate bullshiznonkey? Erik Erikson. He broke down the entire psychology of human development into little digestible pieces, that even us, the everyday normal Christmas fanatic could understand. And so he's our next nomination for the scientist crotchal street name dealie. We'll try to get this one called Eriksons First Two Stages of Human Development Street. Integrity vs. Despair indeed.
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