Seething Hatred

On Too Much Information:

I’m not sure if this is true in general or just within families, but there is apparently no such thing as suffering in silence. There is only suffering in great detail. I learned this the hard way when my boyfriend and several members of his family were felled by an absolutely wretched stomach virus. I think maybe I could have done with a little more mystery and a great deal less discussion and hand gestures.  On the other hand, in between taking care of my poor baby (who turns into a very sad puppy when he’s sick) and getting him hooked on grape flavored Gatorade, there was much that was both amusing and vocabulary-building. For instance, I learned three very colorful Spanish variations of the phrase “I have to crap.”  Plus, when he wasn’t actively dying (or discovering the joys of wet wipes), Elí told several excellent stories involving poo incidents from his childhood. Me thinks he will fit in well with my family and their where-I-left-my-shart-pants stories.


On Customs:

Speaking of gigantic amounts of crap…I am not a huge fan of Customs. At first I thought they were a big group of criminals because they held up the food shipment for over two months and charged more in fees than the entire cost of transporting the food from the States to Nicaragua. But now I know that I wish them nothing but long nights of intense vomiting for another reason.  I shall try to relate this story without swearing profusely in two languages, but it will be difficult.

My sister sent me a care package from home ‘cause she is nice. Sadly, I myself will probably never lay eyes on this package.

I got a call from DHL saying that I had a package and I needed to come down to their headquarters, pick up the packing slip and take it to customs where they would give me my box. Clearly believing that a shipping company would actually bring the package to my address was silly and naïve. Ok, that sounds like a hassle, but whatever. So Elí and I hiked across town to the super sketchy warehouse district wherein is located the DHL office. There we were given the forms (and by given, I mean they made me pay for them) and told that, since the package included M&Ms, we would need to obtain permission from the Ministry of Health before we could receive the package. What? That’s stupid, it’s a tiny chocolate candy, it’s not 40 kilos of opium. So we went to the Ministry of Health (or MISA, as it is called here) which was, of course, closed. Grrrrrr. Turns out the Ministry of Utter BS Health is only open on certain days, and only from 8 to 12:40. What kind of retarded office closes at 12:40?

So we went back to MISA when it was open and were told that first, we would need to make photocopies of our ID’s and every single form from DHL. No problem, except oh wait, you made us surrender our ID’s at the front desk in order to get a visitor badge. So we had to leave and walk around until we found someplace to make copies. Back to MISA. Then they told us that we needed to back to the sketchville DHL office because one of the forms wasn’t an original. So we took a cab to DHL where they informed us that no, the form is an original and therefore they cannot give us another. Ok, back to MISA, except there were no taxis out in the middle of nowhere warehouse land so we had to hoof it for a least a mile. We tried to convince MISA that all the forms were original for-the-love-of-God-give-us-the-permission-so-I-can-eat-some-%^$$*&@!#-M&Ms!!! But no, next they said that there was a problem with the wording of the form and we needed to go back to DHL and have them change it.

Nearly weeping with rage, we took yet another cab back to DHL and asked for a new original form with the preferred MISA wording. This, we were told, would not work at all because Customs had a copy of the first form and if we presented them with a different form they would accept neither the new form nor the corresponding permission. So we can’t get the permission with the old form and we can’t get the package if we use a new form. Please insert the swear word(s) of your choice here.

So yeah, I wasted an entire morning and rather a lot of money for absolutely no good reason. No care package for me, no chocolate, no joy. Just seething hatred in my heart.