Cost Saving Measures, Mexico Style

Ah, peace at last. We just get into our gorgeous new temporary One-Pound Garbanzo Bean apartment (read the last entry if this is confusing), and we’re ready to settle in. Being a new place, we need a few new, well, necessities: soap, paper towels, pillows, something to eat, you know the drill. We decided to run to Costco to look for pillows and anything else on our list that was cheaper and less than a three-year supply, go to a grocery store, and head home to make dinner. To illustrate the convenience of our new abode: Costco was all of ten minutes away, with two different supermarkets right around the corner. We went to Costco and found some awesome memory-foam pillows, for fairly cheap (although they were about twice the cost of the practically free regular pillows there). Iti was a little worried the pillows were too thick, but I was totally sold on them, so we bought them figuring she could sleep on one still in plastic and we could return it if she didn’t like it. When I got into the car to drive to the supermarket, I noticed the gas indicator was on empty.

And I’m not talking “just starting to brush softly against the E, a gentle caress in the morning”.

I’m talking “if it leans any further to the left the needle will snap and explode out of the dashboard”.

So I’m like “Whoa, we are WAY low on gas, we need to stop”. Iti deftly replies “Don’t worry, I have it all planned out: we’ll hit this grocery store on our way home, then there’s a gas station right around the corner, and then it’s a block back to our place”. I persist that we should stop sooner because it looks really REALLY low, to which she replies “the gas light hasn’t even come on yet”.

True dat.

It’s getting close to dusk, and we’re on this winding three-lane one-way street heading to the grocery store. We get around a blind curve (the buildings are all at least 3-4 stories and right up on the sidewalk here) and JUST get in sight of the grocery store, when the car dies. Violently, bloodily keels over. Well, not really; it just dies, with every warning light on the dash coming immediately to life. Except, of course, a low gas light. There was even one light that I have NO idea what it’s supposed to mean: it kind of looks like a car getting blasted by Electro or some other Marvel comic evil super-villain. Pretty cool, huh? That must be the Mexican “Whoa dude, your car is REALLY messed up now” indicator.

Fortunately we were just around a blind curve, so all the cars speeding like mad couldn’t see us until it was way too late to brake. (Somehow, the car didn’t get hit). And fortunately, when I jump out to push it, I notice that we’re pointing slightly uphill, and of course in the left-most lane. (Somehow, I didn’t get hit). Now for the real fortune: there were about four diagonal parking places in front of a shop about two car lengths ahead. To ruin my delight, there was a curb. I strained and groaned and couldn’t get the car nudged uphill over that damn curb, so Iti had to get out and help push from the door while steering. I damn near ruptured something, but we got over the curb and into a parking space, and nobody even died this time.

One nice thing is that road-side assistance came included with our brand-new, one-month-old, 2008 Chevy 4-door sedan. So, naturally, Iti calls the road-side assistance for, well, assistance. After a few seconds she’s talking rapid-fire in Spanish, I’m totally lost, so I’m only getting the story every few minutes when she’s on hold with the wench. But, this is roughly how the conversation went:

Iti: “Hi, our car broke down and we need help”.
Wench: “What seems to be the problem?”
Iti: “We were driving along and the car stalled, every light on the dash came on. We were low on gas, but the low gas light didn’t come on, the car just stalled.”
Wench: “OK, what’s wrong with the car?”
Iti (fuming): “Uh, what?!? YOU’RE THE ROAD SIDE ASSISTANCE! YOU TELL ME WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE !#@! CAR!!!”
Wench: “What would you like me to do?”
Iti: “HELP US!!!!”
Me (thinking, to the Wench): “If you died and ate a big steamy pile of &^$%, I’m pretty sure that would help my outlook on life right about now.”
Wench: “Well, if you need gas, I can send out someone with a gas can to sell you gas.”
Iti: “I don’t know if we need gas.”
Wench: “I could send somebody out to tow the car to a dealer, but they won’t have a gas can.”
Iti: “I don’t know if it needs a mechanic to fix it!?!?!!!”
Wench: “OK, I’ll send someone out to jump the car. What kind of a car is it?”

It went on and on and on like this for literally like an hour. The wench would start to take the information on the car: 4-door silver Chevy, 2008, 2000km, license blah blah blah, filling out a form to send out a tow truck or something. But, the tow truck doesn’t have gas or jumper cables; the guy to jump the car doesn’t have a gas can; and the guy with the gas can doesn’t carry jumper cables and can’t tow. They send out one of three different guys depending on what you need; we don’t know what we need so we have no way of knowing if something will in fact help us. The worse part is, if she sends someone out say to jump the car, we wait 45 minutes. If that doesn’t work, we have to call back, and it takes ANOTHER 45 minutes to get someone else out to us. The WORST part is, each one is a different form in the wench’s computer system, and the start of each form is information on the car. So the dumb @!## is going back and forth between the forms, and like eight times she asks us ‘What kind of car?”. By about the forth time Iti was screaming into the cell phone “IT’S A FREAKING FOUR-DOOR SILVER CHEVY, 2008!!!!”.

Wow.

About the third time she put us on hold to order a tow we weren’t sure we needed, Iti turns to me in a panic: “My phone is pre-pay, and I’m almost out of credit! I think it might die before I’m done with her!” I cleverly reply “Let’s call your dad and have him call us back.” “I can’t! I’m on the phone with this stupid wench you FREAKING MORON!!!” Or something like that.

So, we’re sitting there outside the car, the sun is going down, and finally we agree to have the wench send out someone with gas. Iti had this vague recollection that when her mom had the older version of our car, it broke down when it was low on gas but not out. They had to fill it up and reset something in the computer to get the car to work again, so she thinks. So, fine, let’s try the gas. It then, of course, begins to rain.

We get in the car and call Iti’s dad. She has him call us back (you can receive calls with no credit, the caller gets charged), and explains the situation. We’re worried that if we need a tow, a). we have a trunk full of stuff from Costco we need, like the pillows b). it’s raining c). I have to get taken to the airport the next morning to go back to Raleigh for work. She asks him to come get us and help us take our crap home. His reasonable response is “What if they fill you up with gas and it starts? Then I’m wasting like 45 minutes to get out there”. This of course upset Iti slightly, but we agreed that if the gas didn’t work, we’d call him to come get us, and he could call for the tow if her phone ran out of credit.

Iti figured that the person with gas would probably be some kid on a moped, and it’s raining, so who knows HOW long this could take. And then it starts raining harder.

And harder.

And HARDER.

I’m talking like Noah and the Ark, wrath of God, the world is gonna end RAINING outside. We’re huddled in the car, and the BRIGHEST flash of lightning I’ve ever seen lights up the sky, with a crack of thunder like a gas tanker exploding. All the lights in the block go out. So then I get the fun for the next 20 minutes of explaining to Iti that you’re actually very safe in a car during a lightning storm, while she’s, uh, “slightly upset”.

We sit there, and an hour later, before the car floats away on the new river which formed in the street, the gas person comes. Fortunately the poor bastard had a car, not a moped, with a nice heavy rain poncho to boot. He comes up, we roll down the window and explain our story; car just dies suddenly, low on gas, not sure if that’s the problem, gas light didn’t come on when everything else on the dashboard lit up.

The dude nonchalantly says to us “Didn’t you know? This model car doesn’t have a low-gas light”.

Really? REALLY?!?

Come ON people! You gotta be freakin’ KIDDING me, right? How could you not splurge on the extra dime to put in a stupid freaking “Hey moron, put gas in your car, you’re running on fumes and the car’s about to die” low gas light in the car????? This car kills me. Like, they couldn’t spend the mega-bucks to put in a left turn and right turn light on the dash. There’s one light, with an arrow on both ends, that flashes for left turn signal, right turn signal, and hazard lights. Did that REALLY improve your profit margins that MUCH on the stupid f#@!&!# car? Was it cheaper than paying some dude to drive out in an epic natural disaster to give us some gas? Well done people!!! Well done.

Of course he fills us up and the car starts like a champ, we’re on our way. Uh, babe? Next time, let’s fill up when the gauge reads a quarter tank, OK?

We go to the grocery store, and of course it’s a cluster $!@!. The parking is covered, with an opening for two-way traffic that’s wide enough for one motor scooter to pass through (carefully). We had to wait like half an hour to park, and it took me a 27-point turn to get into the incredibly tight parking spot. Going to the airport the next morning was fun too; with all the rain, we had to cross three flooded intersections that resembled rivers more than major city streets. I’m just glad the car didn’t float away.

Or run out of gas.

Until next time,
A Chicago Gringo in Mexico