Christmas Shopping Fail
Posted on December 18, 2009 - Filed Under Kids, Mom Stuff, Personal | 4 Comments
It’s getting close to Christmas. My clients seem to be oblivious to this fact, sending me more and more assignments and expecting me to have quite enough time to slave away at these all day and night. Which I do. And I try to forget that I haven’t sewed a single stitch yet on a single costume for the costume box (though I have a nice collection of hats), or Christmas PJs. I haven’t baked a single Christmas cookie and Gourmet Mama is full of slow cooker recipes because that’s all I have time for these days.
So yesterday, I decided to go shopping. For some utterly insane reason, I’d promised a friend that I would make a birthday cake for her little boy’s sixth birthday. Two cakes in one week . . . insanity. So I thought I’d take advantage of the fact that I was baking and I’d make some cookies, cupcakes and stuff while I was at it. I planned to buy the necessary supplies, plus a birthday gift in Antigua, and to make the trip multi-functional, do my Christmas shopping at the same time.
We piled in the car with both boys after Dante woke up too early from his nap to be left with Irving’s brother. We headed out and halfway into Antigua, I shifted into third and the car died.
Irving called his dad to bring our mechanic (yes, we have our own personal mechanic, a tiny little man who looks to be about 100 and who is more than happy to come to the house to work on car, pickup or motorbikes). The guy came and said that it was either the alternator or the battery. They push started the car a couple of times, but it died every time. Finally, it looked like we were going to be sitting there for a long while until they got a new battery.
Now, I don’t know about you, but my idea of a good time is NOT sitting by the side of a busy Guatemalan road, trying to keep a certain self-destructive almost 3 year old from rushing out in front of buses. So I suggested that I go on ahead with the boys, get money out of the ATM and do some shopping with them. Irving looked doubtful. His dad looked doubtful. A chicken bus pulled out of San Pedro and I grabbed 20Q from Irving, plus his phone and ran jump on it with the boys.
We got off below the park and started walking . . . it’s about four blocks to get to the park and the only ATM that I trust in the entire city (on a total side note, our money that was stolen because of a cloned ATM card is being returned today!). The boys were wearing their “terklies” or sandals and it turned out that terklies aren’t any good at all for walking long distances, no matter how cool they look . . . and these ones look pretty darn cool.
(especially when said terklies are used to turn a little boy into a Transformer!)
We headed straight for the ATM. It was 2 pm, no one had eaten since breakfast and the boys, while not getting too whiny, were letting me know that they could really stand something to eat and since we were so close to Burger King, couldn’t we PLEEEEEEASE get some fries? I assured them we would get fries just as soon as I got the money. Except I didn’t remember the PIN. I never use the debit card, it’s always Irving who runs in while I wait idling in the car. ARGH!
Armed with Q18.50, I headed to BK where the three of us shared one large fries. Then they asked for a drink. I counted the remaining change, tried yet again to call Irving’s dad and finally headed out to buy the boys a bottle of water. We passed an internet cafe and I had a brainstorm . .. I could get my PIN online. Well, 15 minutes and a gazillion passwords later, I had it. (thanks to being hacked so many times, I have all my passwords set to bizarre combinations that are impossible to remember and I have written down . . . at home)
Finally, we were able to get the money, get a drink and then head out shopping . . . . or not.
“These terklies hurt my foot!!!” Dorian wailed. “It really, really hurts!” And he sat down in the middle of the sidewalk to cry.
“Me, too! Duele, duele!” Dante joined his brother. And that, my friends, is how I ended up sitting in a park for an hour with two unhappy, but fed, children, waiting for my man to come and pick us up and when he didn’t and didn’t call and his father didn’t answer the phone, I took a cab home. Only he called as soon as we left Antigua. We had the taxi drop us off where Irving was parked and we went back into Antigua to get the new battery, buy a birthday present for the little boy and run back home just in time to have something quick for supper, bake a cake and sort of catch up on articles.
And that is why I do NOT recommend attempting Christmas shopping with little boys in terklies. Or broken down cars. Or even with a mechanic in your car (the guy spent the entire afternoon with Irving and the car and only charged us $5) or when your husband has a gig that starts early in the evening.
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4 Responses to “Christmas Shopping Fail”
Talk to Me, People!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! (that needed to be said. sorry things crashed so badly!)
Wow… what a day you had! My christmas shopping was failure due to massive amounts of snow so I was “forced” to stay at home and bake cookies instead.
Have a good final spurt til christmas! xoxo
Wow, a white Christmas! I’m happy to be in a tropical country, but sometimes it would be nice to have a white Christmas. Hope your cookies turned out great!
My almost daily trips to the ATM have given me confidence in both BI machines (5th Ave S and also at the Barrista in the park) as well as the ATMs at the bank on the west side of the park, just north of Condessa. No problems there in the last 13 mos.