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.
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