February 18, 2008

Patience.

Today I sat in the food court at Multi-Plaza (a humongous mall) in Escazu (an upscale gringo suburb) and watched my kid eat her order of fries from McDonald's. I couldn't stomach that crap in the states. Here it's actually made a teensy bit worse by virtue of the fact that the fries are almost always cold. India just seems to eat them for the familiarity of the ritual. I sat there and watched the food court slowly fill with people and tried to guess who the North Americans were. Mostly, their choices of food (McD's, BK, KFC, Subway) and their clothes gave them away. When the place is really packed, the American fast food joints are slammed with customers and lines can be 20 or 30 minutes long.
Tom's out of town on business, so India and I went to the movies, our usual Sunday ritual. She likes her movies in English, but more and more seems less bothered when they're dubbed in Spanish. Now, instead of wishing they were in English, she's back to complaining about the quality of the story. Progress. It's odd, I'm pretty mellow about all of the waiting and lines and traffic and inefficiency here, but for some reason, the situation at the movie theater always manages to piss me off. In Miami, I'd go to the movies with a friend and one of us would walk up to the window after a brief stay in a fast moving line and ask the disinterested teen-ager with a glazed expression for tickets for two adults and two kids for whatever movie. Hand over a debit card and a few seconds later, sign a receipt and walk away with four tickets. The whole process taking no more than two minutes, then on to an interminably long 8 or so minutes in line for pop-corn and soda. By the time we sat down, we'd be nearly $50 lighter, but it was over in a flash. Today I stood in line for 25 minutes, behind only 4 other families, wondering what the Hell could be holding up the line. As I got closer, I realized that as each group moved to the cashier, they didn't just say "two adults and three children", it was more like, "well, let's see, there's Javier, Antonio and Ciomara and they want to see "Magica de Terabithia" and we want to see something else, but I guess we'll see that too...so, that's the three of them and us all for that movie." And the cashier doesn't just pull up the damn ticket, no, she continues this blather with, "So, you all want to see "Magica de Terabithia"? Okay...and that was, let's see, one, two, three...three children and two adults, is that right? Okay, that will be 8500 colones....okay, here you go. Have a nice day." Another 5 minutes sucked out of my life and I'm still not next. What's with the conversation?! Why all the chit-chat?! I'm pretty fidgety by the time I get to the cashier and not wanting to waste time yapping, I say, "One adult and one child for Terabithia." I get the deer-in-headlights look. "One child? One or two adults?" " One adult." "One child and one adult...for which movie?" "Terabithia." "One child and one adult for Terabithia....3400 colones." My blood pressure is making my ear pound, I hand over 5000 colones. Change takes forever. So do the tickets, but I tell myself to be grateful that she printed the tickets for the correct movie because at least three times we've been here she's gotten the movie wrong. Whatever. That line is over. Now on to the really long line. The snack line. I'm in 5th place. I'm figuring about five minutes per customer. I'm spot on this time. One guy at the counter and each order placed is accompanied by a conversation eerily similar to the ones that went on while buying the tickets. "Javier? What would you like? Uh-huh, uh-huh. Antonio, what would you like? And a soda too? Ciomara? Uh-huh. Large or medium? Uh-huh." Then, the person turns to the dude behind the counter and recites each order, double checking with the child, to a person who was standing a foot away when the kid told the parent what they wanted. Then the modifications, order changes, requests for straws, requests for more napkins. I'm ready to tear out my hair. It's finally my turn, "combo #1" but I've spoken so quickly the guy looks confused. I say it again, "Un combo, # 1, Coke Light." He springs into action. And gives me regular Coke. I remind him that I asked for Light. He hesitates...he's already begun to fill the cup...what now? I stare until he reluctantly pours it out and starts over. He fills the popcorn cup. I brace myself. "Con mantequilla y mas sal, por favor." Again, he hesitates. "Es 250 additional." "Esta bien." He sighs and disappears through a door. I hear a similar sigh come from the crowd behind me. I turn and apologize. WTF am I apologizing for? If they had the damn butter where I could get to it myself, this wouldn't be an issue! A couple of minutes go by and he re-emerges. "Y mas sal?" "Si." He gets a ladle filled with orange salt and knowing he'll just dither away at it until two or three grains fall onto the popcorn, I take the ladle from him and salt the bag until I hear India's maniacal laughter at getting such salty popcorn. I hand the ladle back and hand over 2050 colones. We finally make it to our seats and I plonk myself into the chair and breathe slowly and try to calm down. This ordeal had cost me a mere 6 or 7 dollars, but I wonder sometimes if the aneurysm will be worth the discount. I don't know what it is about the movies that pushes me right over the edge when little else even comes close. Still, we had a nice day and later, when I came home and we walked over to the park, I thought again how much I like this place. It was quiet and peaceful and I chatted with my neighbor Carol and the lady with the two chihuahuas. I talked with the guard about the weather and pushed India on the swing for half an hour while we discussed what she's going to invent when she's a scientist. I was just happy that I wasn't in a rush to do anything or go anywhere. I know next week I'll want to throttle the theater employees all over again, but I've got six glorious days of happy inefficiency, incompetence and foot-dragging to enjoy until then.