Seriously, it has been a few weeks or months or whatever since they drilled holes in my bone, and I can officially report that nothing has changed in well over a year. Or was that two years? I can vaguely remember having foot surgery, but that's about it. I do have this interesting scar on the outside of my left foot, and occasionally (like this weekend) the area under that scar aches a little bit--maybe from pressure changes or something, I don't know how these things work. But the point of it all is that I play soccer when I have time, I run and walk all over everywhere, and I generally have no complaints about the metal screw in my 5th metatarsal. I highly recommend it for anyone whose stupid stress fracture refuses to heal, and of course has insurance that covers such things. Don't forget about the insurance, because stimulus or no, I don't reckon the feds are too excited about fixing your fractures just yet (they're going to have to boost taxes a bit more for that to work out...:)
Alicia asked me to mention something about the good people at Carrefour and their amazing pricing system, so I thought that would be paragraph two for today's entry. Yes, the great supermarket chain that has installed itself in many of the locations formerly occupied by Continente here in Spain (I suspect the two chains traded stores across Portugal and Spain, but have no external information to confirm that hypothesis) has a pricing system that is truly worthy of note. See, like many stores, they advertise. So some guy comes around every week or two and jams an advertisement booklet into our mailbox. This booklet is full of all the deals you could possibly want, if you weren't living about a mile away from the place and aware that you were going to have to carry all those purchases across the unreasonably long Roman bridge. Sometimes those deals are so good that we're convinced we must be reading wrong. Most of the time, we're not reading wrong. But when we get to the store (bus passes are nice on those days), we somehow inexplicably fail to read the black and white of the signs, such that items marked "2 for the price of 1" or "2nd item at 50% off" are invariably rung up by our kind cashiers at full price. Thus far, I have been completely unable to convince a cashier that in fact the sign on the shelf reads "ITEM DISCOUNTED." So I leave a lot of stuff at the register. Occasionally, I am informed that those prices haven't gone into effect yet (even though the advertisement is already circulating throughout the city, and the sign on the shelf announces the discount), or perhaps that the sign just hasn't been taken down yet (even though the date on the sign includes today), but usually it's just the blank stare that says "you're obviously not from around here, the price you get is the price that the system assigns, regardless of advertised prices in print." I have never felt that the cashiers are rude or mean about the pricing stuff, usually they're more than happy to send that lady on the rollerskates back to double check the prices. I am starting to think that the company that operates this particular Carrefour store has a couple policies that are at odds with my own view of the world. The first policy is that signs and advertisements will intentionally be sent out before they're in effect and after they're no longer in effect. This allows them to catch those of us who are either real go-getters or too lazy to head out for the sales during the actual sale period, preventing us from capitalizing on the savings advertised. We get there when those prices aren't in effect, and rather than leave empty-handed, we buy what we can. The second policy, one that makes me a little bit more unhappy, is that they very intentionally put signs up over items to which those signs do not apply. They're far better at this than any supermarket I have ever visited, going so far as to confirm that either the size, or brand, or both, of the item advertised is the same as the one over which the sign is placed. Meanwhile, the product actually discounted is two shelves over and two shelves up. They are careful not to put the product's upc or barcode or whatever that number is called on the signs, thus preventing me from even that method of price confirmation. There are a few of those handy pricing machines around, but those only tell you the price for the single item, so you can't (as far as I know) tell if the second item will be discounted or not until you get it up to the register. I generally don't worry about holding up the line any more, I just want to make sure I like all the prices before I pull out the old credit card. My conclusion from all of this is that it's generally less of a hassle to go to Dia or Arbol, which are within reasonable walking distance, for all of life's essentials. If I ever feel the powerful urge to buy some cured fancy cheese or something like that, I have the lady behind the glass case at the deli section chop it up, wrap it, and slap on a price sticker. That way, at least I know how much it's going to cost before I get in line.
Speaking of lines, have I mentioned how polite the people of Mérida are about lines? If I have and you remember it, skip on down to the next paragraph. If I haven't, or you don't remember, read on: this is a good thing. Here in Mérida, unlike literally everywhere else I have ever been, people are kind of polite about lines. I can't even begin to remember how many times I have been sent to the front of a line by someone who just didn't want to get out of the store any time soon. It's quite odd. I have even felt compelled to do the same a couple times when someone shows up behind me in line with only a few items. The other nice things about lines here is that people arriving in a line-waiting situation announce their arrival with the question, "who's the last person in line." How crazy is that? Imagine waiting the crowded waiting area in the Cincinnati DMV for your license renewal or tags or something, and someone comes in behind you and hollers [man that word looks weird] out "who's the last person in line?" It's really quite phenomenal. This happens in banks, in post offices (even where you take those numbers), grocery stores, butcher shops, pretty much anywhere there might be a line. I have yet to be pushed out of the way or line-jumped here. Don't try that in Portugal... We even fight over who's getting into the line first for the waiting room to wait for the second waiting room before getting in line to board the plane (mind you, nobody ever has a big carry on bag in these situations, it's just some innate drive to be on that plane before the rest of the passengers). Well, at any rate, the good people of Mérida, Extremadura, Spain, must be about the politest waiters-in-line or line-waiters in the world.
That ends my line digression. The next topic up for discussion today is when I'm going to get those $800 that are now being promised to me as a means of saving our economy. I'm all for stimulating the economy and all that, but when do I get to have my economy stimulated? My economy isn't a very patient one, and we here in Spain are suffering more than most countries, so where's my stimulus? I'm not mad or anything, but it's about time they showed me some green for all the hard work I've done over the 2008 calendar year. I filed early so I could get that "refundable tax credit" as quickly as possible, and now I'm being told I'll have to wait until June. People last year were getting those things before June, I can guarantee you that. So I ask you, is this a change for the better? Sure, they're telling me I'll get more than I did last year, but think how much interest I could make on the earlier credit last year than I will be able to this year - it almost evens out. Plus, with inflation and so on, I'll bet that the "$800" I'm supposed to get this year (I'm still deeply skeptical about this money) turns out to be less valuable than the less-than-$600 that they actually gave me last year (bonus question: can anyone figure out why I got less than the $600 that everyone was talking about for couples filing jointly?). I guess in the greater scheme of things this is still all George W's fault (it will ALL be his fault until something good happens, don't you think?), so I'll write him that nasty email I've been meaning to send for quite some time. Meanwhile, somebody figure out if they can speed up the refunds a little bit. That way I can get that camera and stimulate the economy. Uh, Nikon is still a US company, innit? Sweet.
Speaking of U.S. companies, why in the world are Levi's so expensive in Europe? I know they're kind of pricey for jeans these days even in the States, but I'm talking 70 or 90 EUROS for a pair of 501s. I know for a fact you can get those for $35 at any department store, and sometimes they're even on sale for less than that. The minimum wage over here is like 600 euros/month. I'd guess the average work month here is 20 days, with holidays and fiestas and all, and if we're being really generous we can say they "work" 8 hours on a work day. So that's 160 hours and 600 euros in a month, which comes out to 3.75/hour. Pretty sweet. Let's convert that to U.S. cash at $1.28 to 1 EU, and we're making $4.8 an hour. I'm thinking they probably get to keep all of that, right? Actually, on that point, I'm not sure. Of course that's the minimum legal wage, which means that in real terms very few people make that little (I've read in a couple places that it's not much more than 1% of the total population in Spain, though I don't know if that accounts for illegal immigrants as well). Nonetheless, that's not an awesome wage, especially if you're looking to drive a car (which drinks gas at aroung 1 eu/liter) and live in a house with electricity (that stuff isn't cheap here, even though it's practically all hydro- and solar power). So if you move to Spain, 1) do it legally, and 2) make sure you've got a job where you make more than minimum wage. I'm just saying...
Anyway, we're off to Andorra in just over a week, at which time it looks like I'll be somewhere between chapters and looking for something to do with my time. If only for the 4 days of the trip. Ok, so I'll take something to work on even for the trip. Man, give a guy a break. It's 4 days. I'll be driving half of that time!
