So Saul did some “spring cleaning” this weekend. There’s a space at the back of the house that pretty much resembles a 3x3m cage. It’s on the top floor and contains all the stuff that his parents didn’t want in the house while it was a hostel. Anyways, it’s not exactly built to be much of a weather shield what with its wire-mesh fence walls (the kind you see around a baseball field) and soggy cement floor. And what’s more, now that the rainy season has arrived, it’s obvious that the ability of this storage space to preserve its contents is moot. Save for the boxes, those precious contents have no hope of making it through the summer winds which bring layers of dust and dirt to all open spaces and then there are those heavy, torrential hail showers.
Saul was asked to bring down some seat cushions that were drying in the storage shed-without-walls. He got distracted, no surprise there, and begin picking through some of the soggy and misshapen boxes and was surprised to discover that all of the family photos and albums were inside, piled carelessly, very much so tossed in there last minute (he was even more distressed about his Superman comics but we won’t go there). So he pulled out the photo box (and the comics…sigh) and we began going through some of the pics.
What can I say about the 90s…tasteless trends and neon colors must have been a global epidemic. I thought that it had been contained within Canadian and American borders, but no. It made its merry way to Mexico and in full heat. Though Saul is more of an athlete these days and tends not to stray much from spandex and sweats, once upon he apparently swam with the trend. There he was stuck in "Hammer Time": eye-burningly-bright purple MC Hammer pants, his hands deep in their pockets, with a purple and black striped shirt to match, and the icing on the cake? His MC Hammer buzz cut and the smirk on his face that said he was “all that and a bag of chips.” Speaking of chips, there was one of my carb-hungry guy at 5-years-old passed out with 3 chips in his mouth. They were literally half-in and half-out when he fell asleep. How, you ask? One word: typical. Not much has changed really, he has an absurd relationship with food. You might recall that Tim Horton’s commercial where that guy is dancing with a doughnut because he loves them so much? Yep, Saul in a nutshell – better yet a doughnut hole.
We moved through the strays and we ran into a pile of photos of what appeared to be nothing more than building. By the time I reached the sixth one of this building I took a closer look and there was Saul’s dad smiling proudly in his crisp, white doctor’s coat, as he leaned with his hands pressed firmly on the front counter of this….pharmacy?? In the top left corner, a sign read “Milenium Farmacia.” My first thought was “What the #%$*…” Saul’s dad didn’t finish highschool at 18, however, he did return to highschool and went on to complete law school because he couldn’t hold a conversation with his new girlfriend’s friends (Saul’s mom, Lucia) since she was a professional, a doctor. That makes him a lawyer by profession. So what was he doing standing there in a doctor’s coat as the owner of a pharmacy?
Once he had attained his degree, he quickly got bored of it and shortly after, began printing t-shirts for extra business, owned a snacks and beverages pit-stop in San Andres, worked on political campaigns in Timilpan, and opened up two hotels: one in Timilpan where Don Silviano lives, and the other was a hostel hosted by the house we’re in now in Mexico City. One was successful, the other wasn’t. He’s a man who likes to take risks and doesn’t like to be bored, put simply, and these such businesses are what keep his boredom at bay. One day, he decided that his next project would be a pharmacy chain. I have no clue why this occurred to him or even remotely interested him considering that he’s not a certified pharmacist, nor did he know anything more than the internet and his wife’s medical texts told him about pharmaceutical drugs.
It sounds bizarre that pretty much anyone can sell prescription drugs here but the truth is that’s the way it works. You are your own doctor. For example, I went a pharmacy just around the corner from our house to get another bottle of Bactrim after having had the flu. I asked the “pharmacist” for the generic brand (this is why prescription medicine is so much cheaper in Mexico) of Bactrim and she had a fiddle on the computer then went to the generic brand pull-out shelves. She searched and searched but came out with nothing. She asked her “pharmacist” friend at the other register, then was back to the shelves, and finally pulled out a yellow box. She presented it to me and asked, “Does that look like the one you had before?” Uhhh, I’m not the doctor. But then, for 23 pesos, I guess it’s worth the risk.
Another time, Saul had bad acid reflux and went for some Malox. Since they don’t give you dosage instructions when you’re buying your medicine, and there are no instructions on the boxes or bottles of the generic brands since you’re supposed to get the prescription and directions from your doctor, Saul bought it and eagerly took a giant gulp. Turns out he had downed nearly half the bottle and since the bottle didn’t tell us of any side affects we were left to call his mom. We’re working on his need for instant gratification.
My point is, it’s a scary thought, thinking that a lot of the people who work in these pharmacies handing out prescription drugs everyday are not certified to do so in other countries or are minimally educated on this stuff. Another scary thought? One of last week’s Metro headlines read “Only Seven Dead!” I don’t see how that is every a good thing but whatever. And yesterday’s read, “For Some Pesos” – a man didn’t want to pay a “Viene Viene” and the “Viene Viene” killed him. “Come Come” is the name given to the people who think they own a chunk of the sidewalk then “help” you to park your car on the street by telling you to “Come Come” with their voice and to “Come Come” with their hand incase you can’t hear them, then they guard it until you return. And since they “own” the street, they demand that you pay them for their extra hard work. I’m pretty sure it was public property last time I checked…more so, it’s supposed to be a free world but nowadays your average Joe looking for a new cell phone can claim part of the street, any street, and charge money for people to park there by reserving these spots with crates and buckets full of concrete. There approximately a million stupid slash illegal jobs here in Mexico and once I feel up to the challenge of listing them off, I’ll make sure to post ‘em.
