The line, the milk, the flour, the bachaque-ating, and incentives
On Friday afternoon, my dad sent me a cryptic text: “Anabella. Sábado A Las Ocho. Leche En Polvo. Nuestro Gama. Cédula Tuya y Mami”.
(Anabella – Saturday at eight. Powdered milk. Our Gama (local grocery store). Yours and your mother’s ID card day)
When he sent that text, my dad was leaving a supermarket that is pretty close to our home, and a cashier told him that they would sell powdered milk the next morning to those
con el número de cédula que toque – with the scheduled ID numbers
. The Saturday winning ID numbers are those ending in 0-1-2-3-4.
On Saturday morning, my mom and I got to the supermarket at 8:00 am, and there was already a line with 40 people more or less. We got into the place by 8:18 am, got in line for the milk (2 bags of 900 grams per person) by 8:19 am, and they told us we could also get 2 kilos of Harina Pan per person.
We got our quota and arrived at the check-out line by 8:25 am. We left the market by 8:56 am.
It took me 56 minutes to buy 2 bags of milk and 2 packs of Harina Pan. I was ecstatic, and also slightly unnerved.
Pure gold
I already talked about the
struggles of doing la cola. Now I would like to talk about an expression I heard on the check-out line:
Esto nos vuelve delincuentes… O al menos nos hace sentir como delincuentes.
“This turns us into criminals… Or at least it makes us feel like criminals.”