ranting

If you want a good read, you may need to look elsewhere.

If you think a missionary and a Christian should not be frustrated and want to swear, you might want to go and read your email instead.

Because I need to rant.

Okay, I may not really need to but I sure want to, so I'm gonna!!!

And I also, as previously stated, I really want to swear, but that I will refrain from doing.

I do, after all, need to exhibit some self control.

Insert your own adjectives at will, but lets do try to keep it clean....

So I have been carefully selecting which things I am going to make for this craft fair based on this I can actually get in this blasted country.

Things such as googly eyes and white craft foam.

(which in a Christmas crafters mind can mean many things but currently means snowman ornament kits)

Well, every single stinking store that carries that type of stuff had it all back in October, but now, it is no where to be found.

No where.

Of course, part of this is my fault in assuming that a store that had two packages at one point would have more later, right?

Oh, no.

Word to the wise:

If you find something here in Ecuador that you might perhaps just maybe want to use someday in the future, buy it immediately.

And if they have more than one, stock up - buy as much as you can possibly carry and afford (although I can almost guarantee that they won't carry that much of anything).

Because, you see, they may not carry it for another three months.

Or six months.

Or if it sells really well, they may not carry it again ever because it is too much work to keep it on the shelves!

Why in the world would you want to keep getting things into your store that actually sell well and make you money?

(no, I am not loosing it here.... This is a real live living example:

There was this guy in Costa Rica who had a little store out of his home. He carried this sauce that people really liked and sold a lot of. Problem was, he kept selling out of it because it was in such high demand. So what does he do? He orders more of it each time he places an order and keeps his shelves full so that he can make a good living.... right? Oh, no. That is the most ridiculous idea ever. He stopped carrying it, of course. It is way too much work to try to keep it on the shelves and who wants to work to hard - after all, order 20 of something is so very much harder than ordering 5, yes?)

That is honestly, truly a true story.

It happened last year when we lived there.

Back to another illogical Latin American country.....

It appears that the same thing happens here.

And it appears over and over and over again.

Not just with googly eyes and craft foam either.

Try the grocery store out.

Finally after 5 months you establish what brands of things you like, what the family enjoys, what adapt to your recipes.

Then the stupid store (stupid is not a nice word) decides not to carry it any more.

Now it is one thing if it is an import.

I get that. It could be very difficult to get the same stuff over and over again.

But if it is made in the same stinkin' country as you are selling it in?????

AAAAUUUUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!

I could go on.

I won't.

This could turn into something really bad if I do.

Besides I feel slightly better.

Only slightly, but at least better.

Oh, one more thing...

Why can't the checker at the grocery store just stick to the same regular old questions?

Why does she have to go on and throw out some other question so that I feel like a complete moron because I don't understand.

Let's just stick with: "good morning", "do you need just the regular old receipt or the fancy one for your business/taxes?", "is that all?" "that will be $50 000 000.00 (because things are so freaking expensive), please" "have a great day now that you are in the poor house" "see ya later sucker".

Yes, she asked me something else, I had no idea what she said, and by that time (it was the last store I had gone to) I was so frustrated I burst into tears after she repeated it three times.

Okay, now I am done.

I promise.

I think I need to breath deep right now.

And, by the way, this is a temporary state of mind, for those (mom) who may get concerned.

While there are many frustrations, my "love affair" with Ecuador is not over.

Consider it a time when you are really frustrated with your child, for example, and you want to knock them in the chops, but you know that if, even in that moment, anyone else tried to hurt them, you would instantly get that mother-bear thing going and would pretty much want to whollop your kid's "attacker".

Its a lot like that.