Ripped Off by Walmart Crooks

 I'm an idiot, and I'll tell you why.  Because I needed groceries and just like in the USA I just ordered them from Walmart.  They said everything was in stock.  A delivery man came early the next day.  I was half asleep.  I asked if this was everything.  He said yes.  I tipped him $100 pesos and went back to bed.

More than half the order was missing.  I naively thought it was a mistake.  I contacted support and said to get all the missing items to me.  They said they'd contact me in 90 minutes with a resolution.

They never contacted me.  I tried to reach them again.  Someone asks me what the problem is in chat then never replies.  I try Whatsapp.  Same thing.  I tried to call them.  I get a message in Spanish saying the number has changed call this new number.  I can't understand what they said. I get my Spanish friend to try to listen to the number.  She can't understand what they said.

So, I figure maybe someone will contact me tomorrow.  They don't.  My neighbor is downstairs talking to my mother.

"Don't order from Walmart.  They steal items from delivery orders and put them all together to share every week.  They especially like stealing from gringos."

Oh.  Great.  So I basically set myself up for being ripped off by being half asleep and not checking shit like an idiot.  

I used AI to find the fucking new phone number to call.  And my mom helps me.  For some reason, my chat request starts lighting up as soon as I get through to someone on the call.  This happened twice during my struggle to get my money back (which I still haven't).  It's like the chat people know when I've called or something.

Both of them said the store would call me to arrange a refund.  They have until tomorrow and then I'm doing a force chargeback.  I don't care if I can never shop at Walmart for the rest of my life.  Fuck these crooks.  I'm fighting this.

And, let me say, I've had stuff stolen before.  My shrimp never arrived last time and I suspected that the delivery man had helped himself to my expensive shrimp.  But I wasn't sure.  

Now I'm sure.

People are so nice in Mexico you forget to watch your shit.  And in my defense, this only happened once in the USA when the delivery person distracted me to steal soda he had already taken a photo of as delivered.  

I'm busy.  I'm new here.  I didn't know I had to be on my fucking guard.  But yeah, obviously I know not to order groceries again, unless it's one of the Didi food bikes for a few odd things. 

Real Neighbors

We got a package delivery today, which was odd, because we weren't expecting anything.  The delivery man said it's for our neighbor and when he called them they said to leave it with us.

1. Yes, delivery men, like FedEx, will call you if you're not home.

2.  No number 2.  Just wanted to make a list here.

We were happy to accept the package.  We thought it was for our right side neighbor who is our close friend now.  That's the one we went to Sams Club with in the last post.  She brought us her pozole and brings strawberries and oranges for us a lot.  In turn, I gave her 20 bottles of sugary soda I accidentally bought because I thought it was seltzer.  @-@

But no.  It's the neighbor on our other side, which is the last house on the street, so we're their closest neighbor.

They don't know us except for us saying hi/bye.  But that's enough.  And we gave them their package later that night.  

I mean...that's how things are here.  And I think it's great.  I think it's great that the delivery men call and really care about getting your stuff to you.  I think it's great that the default is just to trust your neighbor.  

People talk about 'the good old days' in the USA.  I'm living those 'good old days' here in Mexico.  You know, 'the good old days' where people put their hearts into their jobs, and neighbors trusted each other.

Anyway, I went to Sams Club because I needed protein powder and didn't want to wait to order some.  I figured Sams Club was a gringo enough store to have it in stock.  It did.  And it was 2x the price in the USA.  Fricking $75 for a tub of Musclemilk.  Like seriously?  It's like $45 in the USA.  I guess it was all the cost to import it.

Protein powder is definitely an American thing.  The friends with me didn't know what it was.  They asked my mom why I needed it.  My mother told them I'm missing half my guts and poop myself and need to drinks special powder.  Or I assume that's what she said.  My Spanish isn't that good yet.

The truth is I was dieting and doing really good.  So I added wrist weights.  The only weights I could get were 2.5 kilos per wrist.  This is compared to the 2.5 pound weights I used to have.  I figured it's fine because it only takes a few weeks for the weights to feel to light anyway.  So I started with these and my body said:  You apparently want muscles!  Give me protein!

I found myself scarfing 2 porkchops before bed and my diet was ruined.  I gained back several kilos.  I can't do this.  I figured If I drank protein powder before my workout I'd have it covered.

After eating 2 hamburger patties tonight I can say it didn't work.  So, no weights for a while.  It's too soon for them anyway.  

In other Mexico news, I don't think there's mail here.  I really don't.  I don't think the Mexico government sponsors a national mail service.  We have a mailbox, but there's never been anything put in it.  And we've never seen mail carriers, vehicles, or postal workers.  

Documents get delivered, but by private courier services.  There's lots of them.  

I've always said my little brother could never adapt to live in Mexico because there are some hassles I don't think he'd deal well with.

1. You can't flush toilet paper. He'd die.
2. You have to go to a gas station to pay your cell bill. And you never know when it's due because the app is not only in Spanish, but it's screwy.  
3. You can't get a monthly phone plan.  All the phones are pay as you go.
4. You have to buy the screen protector at a different store than you bought the cell phone.
5. Most stores don't have iPhones, but they do have nice Huawei phones?
6. You have to go to a gas station to pay your internet bill.  Actually I managed to do this online.  I don't know why I can't just pay my phone online.  It's the same fricking company.
7. If they say a package will be coming tomorrow it may be tomorrow, or it may be in 4 days.  So you better not absolutely positively need to get something that day.
8. Nothing is universal.  
1. Toilet sizes are different here, they have their own standards. 
2. Addresses are written differently. They have postal codes here but you put it before the name of the city, and the street number is put AFTER the name of the street, and you have to specify which 'Colony' you live in. The state abbreviations are 3 letters.
3. You need the equivalent of two social security numbers as a citizen here.  An RFC for taxes, and a CURP for banking and invoicing?  I don't know what this whole invoicing thing is about here but they're constantly asking me for my CURP to give me an invoice.  And I say I don't need one, which they think is weird.  But what do I need the invoice for?  Maybe Mexican taxes.
4. What was I listing again?  Oh well, nevermind.

When we're driving around La Paz we notice a lot of cars that don't have license plates.  I thought it odd.  They definitely have license plates here.  I see them on most cars.  But many are without them.  I saw my neighbor didn't have one and she said the car wasn't registered.  ??  'I know someone who works for the police so it's fine.'  Okay then.

I Have Friends

 Even with bad Spanish I have friends in Mexico.  Friends who don't speak English, but we make it work.  I just went to Sams Club with my neighbor and her daughters.  It was fun.  

My mom asked when the last time was we had friends where we lived?  In the mobile home park we lived in in Las Vegas.  And that's because everyone was a transplant like us.  We knew everyone who lived around us and even went to a two funerals.

But that was 15 years ago.  I knew one neighbor in Arizona and she died.  The other who gave me her grapefruit from her tree moved.  And the new owner put a Trump sign in their yard.  (But there was a lot of Kamala signs).

I did try to make friends in Tucson.  I went to bingo.  I went to poker.  I couldn't connect to anyone.

The USA is lonely.  In Mexico the people are so kind.  They just seem to proceed with the idea, 'Oh, you live here now?  Let's be friends.'  

It's a beautiful thing.

Mexico Musings

I was thinking the other day that my mom and I should go out for lunch.  And in my head was all the places we used to eat at in the USA.  Then I snapped out of it, and remembered I'm in Mexico now.

No more Red Lobster.  Er...actually, we already said we'd never eat there again after the menu turned to shit and got stupidly expensive.  

No more Texas Roadhouse.  Um...there was always a line to get in there.  They were always crowded.  And yeah the steaks were good, but $150 for two people?

I tried to think of a place we actually liked to eat at in Tucson and came up empty.  The Chinese food there was terrible.  My mom can't eat much of the American version of Mexican food because she can't handle anything spicey.  (In actual Mexico, it's really not like this that often.)

Oh wait, there was one go-to mainstay:

No more Churches Chicken.  Okay, well, I like fried chicken of this sort and they don't really have that here.  It more the El Pollo Loco style baked chicken everywhere.  If I want to get American style fried chicken there is one single solitary KFC in the gringo area of La Paz.  We've eaten there twice.  

When I say eaten there, I mean went through the drivethru.  

Ahhh...ordering through drive-thru's.  Such an American convenience.  I pulled right into that drive thru the first time with all the confidence of a stupid American and ordered.

"Doce piezas familia bucket por favor." 😀

There!  I did it!  Amazing.

*Rapid Spanish questions that sound like gibberish to me.* 

😨AHHHH!  What did he say?!  Mom what did he say?!😨  

Mom:  I don't know.  I couldn't hear him.  Ask him to repeat.

HOW THE FUCK DO I DO THAT?

Me:  Um...extra crispy?

NO!  *Rapid Spanish Gibberish Sounding Words*

Mom:  I have no idea what he's saying.

Me meekly:  No intiendo.

A manager gets on:  😡Pull up to de weendow.

I pay and am handed a bag of food.

FUCK!  WE GOT COLESLAW!  He was asking what sides you want you idiot!

Yeah.  So.  Drivethrus are a no until my Spanish gets 10x better.

But I don't need Drive thrus!  I got Didi Food!  

Didi Food is the UberEats of my area (and maybe all of Mexico?)  It's also the Uber of my area.  It has another app called Didi Drive.

Any time we're out and about there are motorcycles with boxes attached zipping through traffic at mach speed with the Didi Food logo on the back.  I got in on that shit quick let me tell you.

And let me tell you something else:  Ordering food delivery in Mexico is FUCKING AWESOME!

USA:  We only had UberEats in my area.  I have *NEVER* had an order of literally *ANYTHING* be less than $100.  Korean food?  $150.  $70 for the food.  $80 for the fees and tip.  And it was a race against time for them to deliver before the gate to my building closed for the night.  So I always did the $3 'straight to me' fee too.

Mexico:  Literally no way for any food order to cost more than $50.  That's with EVERYTHING.  Fees.  Tip. Letting the delivery person keep the change.  Everything.

And I say there's literally no way for it to cost more than $50usd because you can only order up to $1000 pesos worth of food ($50) and pay cash for it.  Otherwise you have to pay with a credit card.  

And guess what?  They don't accept any of my credit cards.  I try.  They fail.  I'm routed to a page to get a ClaroPay account.  Which I would love, but I don't have a tax ID number for Mexico (the local Mexico one).  They didn't give me one because I'm not allowed to work here, and that's how they make sure of it.  If I can't pay taxes, I can't work.

Hence, I have to make sure every order is under $50 enough for there to be room for the fees and tip.  You'd think that's a problem, right?

I just ordered lunch for my mom and I for $250 pesos.  $13.  And that was, again, EVERYTHING.  A pizza.  A tip. The App fees.  It was actually only like $220, but the delivery people always give change in a massive pile of coins so I told him to keep it.

BUT WAIT!  It gets even better.  La Paz is a reasonably big city.  250,000 people here.  It's a decent size.  Big enough for us to have everything we need.  However, the whole city is on a very small footprint.  There is no such thing as a 'long drive' here.  Everything is within 6 kilometers of us.  

In Tucson we had to give ourselves an hour to drive anywhere.  It's a 30 minute drive to get anywhere because there was so much sprawl.  But add to that constant annoying construction and bad traffic in winter when all the snowbirds were there.

But here? THE FOOD COMES FAST.  Especially since there's a million places within 3 kilometers to order from.  

It comes faster than the Apps estimate.  The app said 30 minutes.  Yeah right, it was 17 minutes.  Basically when you get the notification that the courier is picking up your food you better start walking downstairs, Yamila, because if you think you have another 5 minutes you're crazy.  

There are some things I miss from the USA, but if I was to go back I would miss SOOOO many things about Mexico.  

Life in Mexico is good.

Just Mexico

• You hear a vehicle blasting something on a speaker. 
  
  
• You run outside, pesos in hand, thinking they're selling ice cream or strawberries
  
  
• They stop and think you're donating to their political cause--because the car was driving around blasting a political message.

And Now Back to Normal

The last few months have been utter chaos in my life. 

• January:  Deciding to move to Mexico after the Election
• February: Getting our residency visas so we could move to Mexico
• March:  Literally getting rid of anything that couldn't fit in our car and DRIVING to Mexico
• April So Far:  Trying to furnish this home, get my bidet toilet seat, get settled.

And now we're settled.  We have all we need.  The washing machine isn't dancing anymore.  We over-furnished the tiny living room because 'Merica.  

I'm sitting at my computer catching up on work and I realize it happened.  I said before I left that 90% of my life is sitting at the computer working.  And I can do that anywhere.  And that's what I'm doing.

Today our new housekeeper gets started.  We met her at a tamale shop.  Not really a tamale shop...I guess you'd call it an Elote shop.  The 'tamale' was just masa covered in some white corn bread loose stuff covered in sauces.  My mom got something that was slicing open a bag of the Tostitos here (more like doritos, but they don't have doritos because the word dorito means a different kind of chip in Mexican Spanish).  There was kernal corn and other things added to the tostitos to make it some wild street food snack.  

The store was just a wooden open shed thing on a corner of bare earth among the winding streets of the area where our Air BnB had been.  We only moved two barrios over.  The same area.  The 'local' area.  We're the only gringos.  But still, we liked the area.  The Air BnB area was a bit more dirty and poor, but it was nice.  We made friends there.  We felt safe.  

This area has the same tiny footprint as the houses in the Air BnB, and the houses are connected together, so you share a wall with the house next to you.  However, it's a nicer area because the houses are two floors.  Two floors make that postage stamp sized floor plan livable.  

The streets are clean here.  The sidewalks are more stable, but you still have to watch where you're going.  My mom can walk with her walker to the Oxxo by us.

That's what I wanted to post about.  The new housekeeper is starting today.  She said, 'I need money.  I have kids.'  She was sweet and we hired her on the spot.  First job:  Clean the Air BnB for us.  Do we have to clean Air BnBs before we leave them?  I don't know.  That's the first time I ever stayed in one and we had a 'cleaning fee' added.  But I think we did, and for $30 American, I was happy to pass that job off to her.

She did a good job.  Sent us photos.  But she showed up with nothing to clean with.  We asked her how she was going to clean.  She said she'd just use our stuff.  But we'd moved out of there.  We had no stuff.  This is different from a USA housekeeper.  They bring a whole kit with them.  Here?  They just show up.

We managed to scrape together some cleaning supplies, find a broom, find a mop, find some cleaning stuff in the bathroom and kitchen that the owner had supplied.  She got it done.

For our new house we knew we had to be ready for her.  We bought cleaning supplies, but the house had random stuff here already.  

In the USA we use a Swiffer.  Hey, guess what?  Mexico doesn't do shit like Swiffers.  The floors are tile on concrete and they are made for big sloppy old-timey mops.  My mom said, 'We need to buy her a mop.'  

There were already two of these mops in various places outside.  One was threadbare.  The other looked pretty good.  My mom refused to allow the outdoor mops inside because roaches.  I'm like...put it in a bucket of fucking water.  That will get rid of them.  But we don't have a bucket.

So...I walked out my door, down a few houses, to a 'cleaning supplies store'.  Like literally right around the corner to me.  The had mops and buckets on display outside.  Like seriously.  

No getting the car out of the gate to drive to a big box store.  Just walk down a few houses, and boom.  Everything you fricking need.  Mexico.  They don't do zoning here.

I bought a mop, a bucket, and a rake because my mom said to get one for the leaves in the garden.  How much?  258 pesos.  $13.  And I went by myself.  I did this without my translator.  ;_; I did it!  (I should have taken a fricking picture.  I will next time I go out.)

So we have a bunch of cleaning supplies ready to go for her.  Everything she'll need.  She said $30 to clean our 4 bedroom (but really 5 because of a bonus room upstairs) house.  I'm going to pay her $50 because this is a shitload of work for her, and we want our windows done.  How much did I pay the USA housekeeper?  $125 per clean.  So my $250 a month housekeeper is now $100 here.

And we sold our house.  ;_;  For $15k less than asking, but with the chaos in the USA, I would have taken even less.  

There's no going back now.  We're here forever.  

Oh my God.

Taking Matters into my Own Hands

It's April 8th as I write this.  Furniture has trickled in slowly.  I still need my #$%&ing bidet toilet seat, but it looks like it escaped the USA before the tariff BS.  Tracking says it's sitting in a shipment center in La Paz.  Since yesterday.  So...?

Meanwhile, my mother's bed base was supposed to come on April 4th.  It still says 'coming April 4th' on Walmart.com.mx.  Well...WHERE TF IS IT?  Because my mother is sleeping on a mattress on the floor and she struggles horribly to try to get up from there.

Yesterday I got in the online support chat to ask where it was.  'It should arrive today.'  That was yesterday, right?  It didn't come.  We got a big box that I thought was it, but it was something else.

Digression:  The delivery men have gotten to know us since they're here like 3 times a day delivering all the millions of things we need.  Two in particular have figured out that I'll tip them if they bring in something heavy or take something upstairs for me.  

The box that I thought was the bed base arrived, and the two of them carried it in together, one on each end, huffing and puffing to put it in my mother's room.  So I tipped them.  Then I open the box and it's a super light bench seat thing I needed.  Like a 5 pound thing.  😑  They faked me out for a tip.  (Whatever.)

Anyway, still no bed base and my poor mother is having accidents in the night because she can't get up fast enough to get to the bathroom.  I'm fricking done.  I get on with support again and say to cancel it.  ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.  It's four days late and it's literally the one thing we need urgently.

"It will take 3 days to cancel and 8 days to refund you." IDGAF.  I'm taking matters into my own hands.  I decided I was going to get my mother a bed base today no matter what it took.

In Mexico there's Walmart and several other stores owned by Walmart.  Near our house is the 'discount' Mexican Walmart called Aurrera.  They sell mattresses.  So I figured they would sell cheap metal bases or box springs too.  I went there.  No.  The don't sell anything like that.

Okay, fine.  Then I'm going full American on this bitch.  I saw that Home Depot had a lot of bed bases online.  I went to the one Home Depot in La Paz.  "Tienes un bases de camas?" (Have you bed bases?)  No.  Solo en linea.  (No.  Only online.)  😑 

So I went to Walmart.  Same thing.  Finally I went to Sams Club, a place we bought a membership to for whatever reason.  They said no at first, but then said they did have one box spring.  SOLD.  It's a tiny box spring, but it has legs so it will be tall enough.

Except it doesn't fit in my car.  The worker at Sams Club not only carried it out for me, but him and another guy tied it to the top of my car for free (except for two $100 peso tips, $5 for each of them in USD).  

So, I'm driving home with a fricking box spring tied to the top of my car.  IDGAF.  My mom's not sleeping on the floor another fricking night.  Of course, now is the time when my GPS is telling me to take U-Turn after U-Turn and I'm having to slam on the breaks twice, not a good thing to do with a mattress that's only tied on the sides and can literally go flying off the front of the car.

I got it home.  I got it in the house.  (It weighs a ton).  I got it set up.  I'm covered in dirt and bruises, but I did it.  My mom's bed is off the fricking floor.

One thing that I will never find locally is my bidet toilet seat.  I'm desperate.  My medical condition is making using the bathroom without one a painful messy nightmare.  

Today, Amazon.com.mx refunded me the shipping costs due to the delay.  Not a good sign.  But I ain't canceling this.  It's in La Paz.  I know it's here.  It's mine and I fucking want it.  😡

Our dining room chairs and table arrived.  Now, I noticed that when I buy stuff in stores here they always open the boxes and show me that all the parts are there.  Nice but I felt it unnecessary.

IT'S FRICKING NECESSARY.  I got four dining room chairs and only 3 had the hardware.  So I have one chair that I can't attach the fricking legs to.  I had to order a set of hex screws in multiple sizes to try to get enough of the right screws I need.  

Yes, I could bitch to the manufacturer but I know how it goes.  I contact support.  They have me contact the vendor.  The vendor takes three days to contact me back.  Then they offer a partial refund.  Sending what I'm missing will never be an option.  It's easier just to fix my own problems.

Now let me tell you about the outrageously expensive washer/dryer combo machine I bought.  It had to be imported from the USA.  It was the only thing that would work for us because we didn't have the room or the electricity for a dryer (see my other post).

Well, we got the machine.  Great.  The father of some woman we met at a tamale shop installed it for us.  (I'm not joking, that's how we found someone to install it.)  Great.  We have tons of laundry piled up.  Problem solved.  We enjoy our perfect machine with no issues and fade happily into the sunset.

😡  I'm sure you've guessed that nothing could possibly be that easy.  This gigantic heavy machine that I can barely nudge has decided the unlevel concrete upon which it sits is a fucking dance hall.  It jumps around so much that it blocked the back door and we couldn't go outside to deal with it.  We had to back the car out of the super-tight carport so we could walk around from the front door.

This stupid thing will not stay put.  The spin cycle turns it into something out of a Stephen King movie called El Lavadora.  The thing is literally bouncing so violently it could crush someone.  And it ripped the fucking spigot out of the fucking wall.  

I tried to deal with it.  It came with these rubber stoppers to put around the feet.  I struggled to lift this stupid thing enough to put them on the feet.  It promptly kicked them off and started dancing again.  

If this was a Mexican $300 washing machine I would have tossed it in the truck of the guy who drives around the neighborhoods blasting on speakers that he's collecting broken washing machines and other large metal things you may want to get rid of.  I would have cut my losses.  The machine is possessed and we need a different option.  Right?

But as I said, this was an elite bullshit washer and dryer in one imported and shipped from the USA and it was insanely fucking expensive!  We have to make this stupid thing work.  

Well, I talked to a plumber on Whatsapp to fix the spigot and try to help us level this stupid thing.  Before I could confirm the neighbors came by and the husband is going to fix the spigot and level it for us.  So...Mexico.  The plumber I tried to get couldn't come until Thursday anyway.

Since I'm already ranting, can I tell you some had truths I've learned?  Bad products end up in Mexico.  The TV that you can't screw the legs on properly.  The bed base (mine) that they never drilled holes for the legs on.  Things are wonky, missing pieces, bruised, bashed.  It's like someone said, 'We have to sell it cheaper in Mexico so let's send our worse stuff there.'  

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it seems to happen a lot.  Things are not right in some way.  Somethings missing.  Screws don't go in right.  The last step of the production cycle was never finished.  

And I know how most Mexicans deal with this.  Primo culture they call it here.  Everyone knows someone (or has a cousin, that's what primo means) who can fix whatever the issue is.  Usually that same day.  And for a super low price.  

So they can find the missing screws, drill the holes themselves, fix the drill holes to make them work, whatever.  And I get to thinking that maybe people start to thing it's normal that everything they buy is just a little off.  That that's just the way it is.  

But if a bed base showed up without drill holes for you to attach the legs in the USA you would scream holy heck and the company would have to bend over backwards to make it right.  

It's a different world here.

Adapting to Life in Mexico

 We came down here with only the things we could fit in our car, and in the little carrier we stuck on top.  So all our furniture was sold and I knew I had to buy new furniture in Mexico.  

It's demoralizing to have to buy the exact same thing you already had like a week before.  I thought, maybe it will be cheaper in Mexico.  But no.  This is a peninsula, and it's hard to get merchandise here.  It's been annoying trying to get everything we need.  

Right now my mom is struggling to get up from a mattress on a floor because we couldn't get her bed base in time.  It's a few more days of hell for her.  I figured she'd sleep up in my room until she got the bed and I'd sleep down there, but the stairs are too much for her.

I thought that I would be able to get everything I needed and wanted in Mexico.  They have Amazon here, right?  But it's not true.  The stories I heard about things being hard to get in Baja California Sur are true.  That's what I wanted to cover here.

We wanted to buy cheap stuff to replace all we sold.  I couldn't find any used furniture stores.  Okay, so we went to new furniture stores.  All of them had dicey delivery dates that were usually wrong.  It has to come from Juarez.  It has to come from Guadalajara.  Who knows when you'll get it?

The most reliable was Walmart.com.mx, but even that has changed dates.  Some stuff came too early, before we were here, meaning we had to run over from the Air BnB.  Other stuff was supposed to be here by now, but isn't.  Delivery dates were changed and no notifications sent.

Okay, fine.  It's inconvenient, but we'll get it all eventually right?  That's for the things we could find.  What about the stuff we couldn't find?

My mom needs an arm chair that lifts her up.  We had one in the States.  I found one on Mercado Libre.  I ordered it.  They canceled the order and refunded me.  I don't know why.

The Mexico Walmart lets me pay in Paypal which is a form of payment that never gets canceled.  So great.  I've gotten the bulk of our furniture from there.  But they don't have this chair she needs.

They have it on Amazon.com.mx.  They accept my credit card there and don't cancel on me later.  I just had to give my immigration number so stuff could be imported in my name. Great.  However, I'm literally having to have the chair shipped from the USA.  They don't have any in Mexico.  So my $650 chair is now $1100.  

Further more, they don't know when it will ship.  They said to order it and they'll get back to me.

That's one example, another two are fly swatters and back scrubbers.  I guess these aren't things used in this area.  No store has them.  Not even the expensive gringo mall.  I had to have those imported too, and I still don't have them as of right now.  The flies are driving me crazy.  

You think some things are universal and basic.  Like a scale to weigh yourself.  I try searching for 'escala' online.  I get tiny food scales.  Apparently there's a different word for them here.  Balanza.  It's been hard to find one.

I can't find body wash.  I've had to go back to bar soap.  

I use wrist weights when I exercise.  I've had to have those imported from the USA again.

Speaking of exercise, I have a new treadmill and finally used it today.  It's short.  Like it's made for a shorter person than me.  I have to lean down to reach the handrails.  It's also narrow.  I worried I'd hit the sides with my feet, but it was okay.

What's not okay is that the timer resets when I have to stop to get off and take a drink of water.  Which I have to do because the only Topo Chico I can get is giant 1.5L bottles that won't fit in the cup holders.  I couldn't keep track of how long I was on.

The light switches are never where you expect them.  My bedroom light:  it should be right by the door.  No.  It's in some random place on the wall.  Same with the bathroom light.  Why there?  Also they are sideways instead of up and down.

The toilet is stupidly placed too close to the sink so it's difficult to use.  Again, probably because I'm tall?  But I'm not really seeing that many people shorter than me, honestly.  They have great diets here and aren't suffering malnutrition.  But I guess the house was built back when Mexicans were shorter.  

I've had to get my mom's travel toilet grab-bars and use them for my toilet because there's not enough space in front of me to stand up easily.  

I love that Mexico only has showers and not difficult to step into bathtubs (I realize that's because no one wants to sit in a tub of contaminated Mexican water).  However, I don't have a shower curtain.  There's no feasible way to shower without the water spraying all over the bathroom floor.  

I do have 'hot' water now.  Not as hot as I'd like, but warm enough that I can actually stay under the flow and enjoy a shower instead of just reaching in for enough ice cold water to clean my vital areas.  We didn't have hot water when we moved in because we were out of gas.  Now we have reasonably warm water, and I'm grateful.

Getting the gas delivered was a pain in the ass.  I'm still learning Spanish so I don't like calling places.  Even if I could understand them, they talk too fast and ask questions I'm not expecting.  So I tried to order gas online.  I ordered 3 times and finally got a call from someone.  I was in the store and my mom was home.  

They asked where my house was.  I gave the address.  No.  They want the coordinates.  I'm sorry, I don't have my sextant and it's day time so I can't align it with the stars.  WTF do you mean you want the fucking coordinates?!  

Okay, I got the coordinates from Google Maps and send it through Whatsapp.  They reply with 'Call the vendor. Here's the number'.  ASSHOLE!  JUST DELIVER THE FUCKING GAS!  

I had to have my mom call and we finally got our gas tank filled in a horrifying way.  They put a ladder against a beam.  They climbed up and balanced on the beam with a giant hose to walk 10 feet to the entry to the roof.  My eyeballs nearly dropped from my head.  He's 30 feet up balancing like a trapeze artist with a fucking gas hose.  Then he filled the tank that's apparently up there.

I was wondering:  What if he fell.  Would I be liable?  Would the landlords be liable?  Would the gas company be liable?  Is liability a thing in Mexico or do they just send the family flowers?

But gas meant I finally got a warm shower and could truly get clean.  Praise God for that.

Meanwhile, I need my bidet toilet seat.  I thought:  I'll just import one from the USA if they don't have any here (which they don't).  But guess what?  Toilets are different sizes and shapes in Mexico.  

Again, like an idiot, I figured toilet sizes were a universal thing.  No.  The toilets here are weird, short, and designed to get as dirty as possible as fast as possible (at least for me).  

But I did find a Mexican bidet toilet seat on Amazon.com.mx.  (Before you give me shit over this, I have a medical condition that makes me use the bathroom 9-12 times a day. A bidet saves me from a lot of problems.  I don't want to live without one).  It was supposed to come April 1.  Then April 4.  Then April 7.  And now April 11.  :sigh:  

We're also waiting for a washing machine.  Dryers aren't widely used in Mexico and my mom is too old to be hanging laundry.  We have division of labor and laundry is her job.  I cook and keep the house clean (by paying a maid).  

Anyway, we have space outside in our nice open garden area for a washing machine.  It's by the kitchen, right outside the back door, so not too inconvenient.  Washers are usually outside because that's where you have to hang the clothes anyway.  It has a sink by it that has groves for you to scrub the clothes against...like those old washing boards.

There's no room for a dryer in that spot.  We thought we'd get a stacked washer dryer, but there's shit above the washer, so we can't do that.  Okay, around the corner in the garden is another outlet and a spot where we could put a dryer.  

Landlords:  The electricity for that outlet isn't strong enough for a dryer.  You'd keep getting shorts.

We have to use the same outlet as the washer.  Where there's no room for a dryer.  And putting an extension cord outdoors is asking for trouble.

Okay, so I bought a washer/dryer combo.  A lavasecadora it's called.  It should be here April 1.  No, April 4.  No April 7.  Meanwhile my mom got fed up and hand-washed some underwear so she could shower.  We didn't have much clothes left from what we got rid of before we moved.

I'm making do with my tiny Mexican kitchen.  I got it all set up just how I liked it.  So the landlord came to tell me to get everything out of the main cabinet since he's putting in a new one.  I said not to do that because I'd just gotten everything perfect.  He said my mom requested it.  FFS.

So I took every out of the cabinet.  And a new cabinet arrived.  Because he ordered it online.  They dropped it off and left.  So my shit is all over the place because no one got rid of the old one and installed the new one.  I don't even want to go downstairs. I'd just gotten to where I could cook and serve food easily.  I had a designated coffee area, microwave area, cutting area, and it's all fucked up for who knows how long.

So yeah.  We're still trying to get settled.

Meanwhile I still have to do my work.  And it's piled up.  I had to get three games out yesterday.  The main one, I don't know.  It's not as good as it should be.  I just didn't have time to deal with it.  We'll see what the reviewers say.