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January 12, 2003.
Holiday time
has obviously come to an end for a few months at least, and things are returning
to normal in our little corner of paradise. I know because I've seen it. Despite
all the positive New Year's resolutions I've made, and despite having added one
more birthday to the (too) many I've already accumulated over the years, all my
old pet peeves have returned these last few days, to wit: the airport, the telephone
company, the banks, the buses, etc. etc. It started when I
had to drive my son to the airport last week. He was taking a charter flight back
to Montreal, late in the evening. I admit that we arrived late at the airport
- only one hour and three-quarters prior to flight time instead of the recommended
two hours. By the time we got there, the line of Québecers returning to
their land of ice and snow had wound its way from the Charter Check-in area, out
the doors and all the way to the roadway that separates the terminal from the
parking lot. They were about four deep and each passenger appeared to have fifteen
steamer trunks (remember those?) filled with stuff… Their slow pace of their
progress was due to the fact that all the luggage had to be thoroughly checked. It
took us one hour to move up far enough to get indoors, inside the terminal. That
gave me plenty of time to look at and wonder about the new sidewalks the airport
folks have built. In case you haven't been there lately, let me tell you: they
are very beautiful, with a most original sculpted surface, and here's the kicker:
they are covered with some sort of acrylic or polyurethane or some similar synthetic
material that renders the surface not only shiny, but also slippery! Can you imagine
what that will be like when the rainy season returns? Maybe it would be wiser
on my part not think about that… I had noticed that
one of the luggage checkers was folding up his table, getting ready to leave.
As he was doing so, he casually looked up and asked the remaining fifty or so
passengers, "Do you have any batteries, or nail clippers, or scissors? If
you do, please take them out of your carry-on bags and put them in your suitcases
so they can be checked in." Then he picked up his table and left, along with
his two colleagues. End of story. Ah, yes, the telephone
company. It's on a new kick now. If you have voice mail and you've received a
message while you were on the line, the next time you pick up the phone you may
hear: "Marque asterisco ochenta y seis para recuperar sus mensajes."
(Dial asterisk eighty-six to retrieve your messages.) Fine, so you do it…
only to hear another message that says: "En este momento, el servicio no
esta disponible. Por favor, intente mas tarde. Hasta luego." (At this moment,
the service is not available. Please try again later. Good-bye.) So
after cursing at the fact that I could not get a dial tone, I tried dialing anyway,
the normal way, once the recording had ended. It worked. I tried to retrieve my
messages the "old" way, i.e.: asterisk-2-0-pound key, and it worked.
So whassup with the announcement I get every time I pick up the receiver? Why
do they do that? And then there are the banks… My
branch is one of the ones that was swept out to sea by Hurricane Kenna, the one
that used to be at the foot of Guerrero Street. Bancomer decided they would not
reopen it and advised its customers to go to the one on Juarez. Only problem is
that there is nowhere to park there. Okay, so if you don't have the luxury of
time to go wandering through the center, you figure you'll use an ATM as much
as possible. No can do. There are no Bancomer ATM's anywhere south of the Juarez
branch. All the others, yes, but Bancomer? Nope. I signed up for the bank-online
access to my accounts back in September, when they first offered the "service"
(compulsory by order of the Mexican IRS equivalent, a.k.a. Hacienda). Unfortunately
no one has been able to make it work for me. But I still get my statements regularly
every month. I noticed that I was being charged $400.
pesos per month, and that account was now down to a few centavos. I finally decided
to dedicate a half-day (which is what it always is) to finding out what was going
on, and I did. My sweetheart of a bank manageress at the Plaza Caracol branch
explained to me that I needed to maintain a minimum of $5,000. pesos in the account.
If my balance was less than that (which it was, because I couldn't transfer any
money to it, because the system wouldn't allow me to…) then I was being "penalized".
For the fourth time in as many months, I asked her if I could possibly have some
checks. Turns out that every time she ordered them for me, they would arrive,
no one knew when, no one advised me, and they would be returned to Mexico City.
What an efficient service! (They must have printed a zillion check books for me
so far… How sweet.) Now I have to wait three days, call my friend at the
bank to ensure that the latest shipment of check books has indeed arrived, and
run over to get them before another eager employee returns them to Mexico City
for not having been picked up within 17 hours and 34 minutes of their reception
at the branch. You may have noticed that the bus fleets
are back in town in full force, back to their old shenanigans, running races along
the main drags, causing noise and air pollution. And they're still running quasi-empty.
Oh, goodie, just what we were hoping for in the new year! Then last Wednesday,
two "illegal" buses were impounded, triggering a mini-strike on the
part of some of the drivers… Authorities were worried that this would spread
to all three bus companies operating in the town. Can you imagine? From a zillion
buses to none? What chaos! Let's hope that things have changed by the time you
read this. For all of you dear readers out there who enjoy
good movies, I recommend "Frida" most highly. It is being held over
for one more week at Cinéma Versalles on Francisco Villa Avenue, really
close to the hotel zone. I went to see this surprisingly excellent film a few
weeks ago and found myself speechless when I came out - something that doesn't
happen with me too often… Other than that, life has
been wonderful - even though my passport tells me that I'm one year older now...
The sun appears to have returned, the children are happy to be back in school
(it was boring for them with nothing to do at home…), the streets are filled
with tourists, the restaurants are full once again, there are interesting movies
playing in the theaters and great music at lots of the restaurants, and the Marigalante
is launching more fireworks than ever before, each night around nine. I love it.
By the way, if you haven't gone out on a Marigalante excursion yet, I recommend
that you do. They are really fun, both the day and the sunset ones, and the food
is excellent. I wish you all a wonderful week, and please,
don't let the giving spirit of the holidays wane. If you continue to share your
good fortune with the less fortunate, it will make you feel great all year long.
Hasta luego.pvmomto3@hotmail.com Archives
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