On Census Day (Wednesday), the previous president of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner, had a heart attack and died. The current president is his wife. Brandon mentioned it in the morning when he was reading news, but it didn't hit me until we were walking through San Telmo in the evening and went into a cute little hole in the wall where we ordered a cheap liter of beer and sat down. The tv was on, showing footage of the activities happening at that moment in downtown Buenos Aires, perhaps a ten minute walk from where we were sitting. Inside la Casa Rosada, the speeches praised the former president and offered condolences to the family. Or at least this is what I imagine was being said, watching Cristina (the current president) hold herself together in the spotlight.
If Brandon and I had not been on our way to meet with a group of American writers for the weekly Thursday night discussion of the work submitted that Tuesday, we would have gone over to Plaza de Mayo to witness the event firsthand. By the time the meeting was over (the meeting began with some political talk that was jump-started by the death of Nestor Kirchner, followed some gossip regarding another English-speaking writing group in Buenos Aires, and finally we talked about my poem and chapter two of another guy's travel narrative), we were too tired to make the trek downtown. It was late. We had been drinking wine throughout the meeting.
A few hours before the meeting, I had a little situation at the supermarket. It made me want to only go to the little markets (called chinos) from then on. Here goes: Brandon and I had recently discovered that if you bring your beer bottles in to the supermarket, there is a machine that takes them and you get a voucher to bring to the cashier for money. This is only fair, because every beer you buy, you are charged a "deposit" of 1.25 for the bottle. Well, for once, we remembered to bring some of our bottles. I can just see us, proudly walking the three blocks from our apartment to the store, ready and excited to use this machine, finally doing things the Argentinean way. But when we arrived, we found the machine uttering loudly some mechanical words we didn't understand and covered with a sign that obviously indicated that the machine was out of order! At the time, I was infuriated, my excitement deflated just as quickly as it came. Now I have to laugh. That truly is the Argentinean way, broken machine and all. This was only a small defeat, though. We left the bottles next to the machine, unwilling to carry them back, especially when we had planned to buy more beer. Beer that was on sale! Hooray for us! We picked out a few different kinds then a couple other items, then we went to pay. I watched the cashier ring up the beer, noticing the sale price not being rung in. So I asked her in my broken Spanish what the problem was. She called over someone to investigate. Between the time it took for someone to actually come over, then to go check out the situation on the other end of the store where the beer is located, I was thoroughly embarrassed and upset, watching other locals leave our line to move to a quicker one, giving me the stink-eye. At least, I thought, she'll come back and fix the cashier's mistake. This was my consolation for the embarrassment. No. Instead, the woman returns to inform me that in order to get the sale, you have to only buy the same kind of beer. Well, it was the same brand, just different varieties that I had picked out. What kind of popsicle stand was this place??? The cashier just looked at me, terribly annoyed, and I paid and stormed out, leaving Brandon behind to pay for his things.
This is the point where I decided I never wanted to go to that supermarket again. It's only cheaper than the market sometimes, and if the sale items couldn't even be purchased for the sale price, well then fuck them and I'll go elsewhere. Heheh.
Today, estoy tranquila. I just didn't know, and now I know. Next time, I'll get it right. Next time, maybe the machine won't be broken and I can have fun using it to get my bottle deposit back.
I remember my first time in Portland returning beer bottles, its was so much fun. Now it's just a pain in the ass.
ReplyDeletei've had that same sale problem in a latin country before--same brand as the sale beer, same quantity, but different colored cans. ? i forced the clerk to walk back to the beer section with me and help me pick out the gold cans of sol instead of the yellow cans of sol, so i wouldn't make a mistake and to be an ass.
ReplyDeleteyou can usually get the deposit back at the little corner stores, too, without having to use a machine.