Three years ago, I’d just moved from Bogotá, Colombia, to Playa del Carmen. We’re talking two different climates entirely, and as such, I had in my possession a suitcase full of cold-weather clothes I’d no longer have any use for. Neither wanting to part ways with them in case fate someday led me to another cold-weather city, nor foreseeing enough trips to the United States to make shepherding the garments back feasible, I figured my best bet was shipping them via the Mexican postal service.
Most gringo expats I know are in some way or another frugal. They may not openly cop to this, but if the reasons we live in Mexico were visually represented as a pie chart, purchasing power would not be a thin slice. I’m not admitting that this is true for me, but I somehow settled on shipping my clothes home the slowest way possible.
The Correos de México branch I wound up in could have been a carnival attraction in another universe. A hall of mirrors but more bureaucratic. The master of ceremonies was a paunchy, balding man in jeans and an unbuttoned polo shirt, sweaty and bespectacled.
He moved around with a kind of anxious grace, like an iron chef, and wasted no time in telling me that my clothes — then still in a ratty gym bag — wouldn’t ship unless I boxed them up and that no, “we don’t have any spare boxes.” Ten minutes later, I was in Chedraui, lurking behind employees restocking shelves, hassling them until one reluctantly gave up a spare box. When I got b.