Yesterday we sorely needed to buy groceries, and Chickpea was sorely not in a good position to sit on a bus, grocery cart, and taxi for two hours.  So Kabob, being the great Kabob that he is, suggested that I go alone and do the deed.  Seriously?  As in, by myself?  But – I haven’t been by myself in a month, since we arrived in country (which, by the way, was exactly a month ago yesterday).  Well okay, there was one time for 20 minutes during Chick’s nap when I walked a few blocks and down the street to get a price quote on some rugs, and the other time I went to the bazaar for an hour.  An hour and a half in one month hardly counts as any semblance of alone time.  I relished the thought of his suggestion, then grabbed the keys and ran out of the apartment before he could change his mind.

I hopped on the bus and took the eight-minute ride down to the closest mall.  The mall is next door to “Home Depot,” where I needed to purchase a rug; before I knew it, somehow I ended up in line at the mall’s Starbucks.  How on earth did that happen, I wondered?  I shrugged my shoulders in confusion, then figured while I was standing there, I might as well grab an americano and brownie.  Something to remember, should you find yourself at Starbucks in our country – there is no tall, grande, and venti.  There’s short, tall, and grande.  No venti at all.  The grande is their large, the tall is a medium, and a short is a cute little perfectly-sized shot of caffeine that is ideal for sitting for 15 minutes while reading a chapter of your new book that happened to fall into your bag as you left the house.  Another note of mention – if you order a brownie, they will package it in a fancy-schmancy cardboard gift box, complete with tissue paper and a fork and knife.  None of this paper bag, eat it as you drive your SUV two minutes away to your driveway sort of thing.  They expect you to sit down, imbibe the cigarette smoke from the surrounding tables, and get an outstanding sugar high before you walk to your remaining stores.

So on to Home Depot, about a three minute walk away.  We call it that for two reasons – 1. minus a few helpful items that might be found in any Home Depot in the states, it pretty much is exactly the same store, and 2. the employees wear orange aprons.  I am not making this up.  We found some great rugs there the other day, but we decided we needed one more in the hallway.  Unfortunately, they apparently sell out of these rugs in 48 hours, because there was nary a rug left.  Oh well.

My final store is about a 15 minute walk away, just down the same busy street.  It’s a mix between Target and Super Wal-Mart – I lean towards Target because it doesn’t make my head throb like Wal-Mart, but it’s kinda like Wal-Mart because it’s quite plasticlicious.  You can find any colorful piece of plastic in the country at this store, I’m fairly certain.  But it also has groceries, and it’s worth the walk even though I pass a popular grocery store (complete with a name-brand Toys ‘R’ Us) to get there, because it’s so much darn cheaper.

Note to self:  don’t ever go to this store again on a Sunday.  It’s a madhouse.  They have the equivalent of Target’s dollar section, but it’s one-fourth of the store, and new items are stocked here each Sunday.  It really did remind me of Christmas shopping on December 23.  And if you  know my affinity for crowded cacophony, you know how relaxing this was for me.  Nonetheless, it was still easier to fight my way through the people and gather my week’s groceries amidst the insanity than it is to entertain Chickpea in the grocery cart after sitting still for longer than any red-blooded two-year-old should.

I  was almost done with my purchases when a cart behind me pushed me gently into the shelf display.  Knowing the people here have a different sense of personal space, I politely ignore it and head to the checkout.  I’m pushed again, this time with more force.  I keep looking forward, not really wanting to see what was going on behind me.  It happens one more time, so I look out of sheer curiosity more than anything.  It’s my new friend, an American my age who lives a block away.  She has a car, and offers me a ride home.  I don’t have to flag down a taxi?  I don’t have to give directions in my pathetically broken language skills?  I’m sold.

(A little side note, for those of you who know me in real life – this new friend of mine’s name rhymes with my name, if you can believe it.  Add an ‘a’ where there should be a vowel in my name, and that’s her name.  Craziness, huh?  And, actually, it’s a name she adopted when she moved here – her English name is the word here for “prostitute,” unfortunately.)

So the evening ends almost uneventfully, except that when she drops me off at my building, I have to strategically put all 10 heavy bags on my two wrists, get out of the car, put all the bags down to close the door, pick them up again, walk three steps to the gate, drop the bags to open the gate, pick up the bags again, go to our building’s front door, drop the bags to enter our code, then drag each bag one at a time into our lobby so that I can keep the heavy door open, pick up all the bags again, drop them in front of the elevator, push the elevator button, pick up the bags again, drop them on the elevator floor for sweet relief as I ride to the 4th floor, pick them up again and pretty much heave them into the hallway, wherein I knock on our front door and beg Kabob to help me drag them in the rest of the way.  Rather pathetic, I think.

Not quite like jumping in the car to grab some milk at H-E-B.

posted: 07 April 2
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