NOB (North of the Border) Brain Disorder

I've been back in Colorado for a few days now and I'm having to re-learn everything.

"Now where do I keep the toaster and which drawer is the silverware drawer? " I can't even ask myself, "Now where would Gaby, (our girl Friday in Mexico) put this?

"Oh look! I have a dishwasher!" (Clapping hands excitedly).

I've finally remembered where the button is that rolls down the window in the car but the one thing I can't seem to retrain my brain to do is turn on the hot water in the kitchen. It should be easy. It's just one of those simple faucets with a handle that swivels to the right for cold water and, of course, swivels to the left for hot water. What's the problem? This is universal, isn't it? Umm…not necessarily. You see, after I had our plumber/electrician guy (they are often one and the same in Mexico) hook up our new kitchen faucet, I found that he had hooked them up the opposite way. If you swivel the faucet to the left you get cold water. If you swivel it to the right you also get cold water… for about twenty minutes at which point the water instantly turns boiling point hot for, again, about twenty minutes then it turns cold again because you have depleted the 5 gallon hot water tank. For some reason our house has a bathtub you could almost swim laps in. I have no idea why. It would take me until the next Olympics to fill the thing. If you are asking me why I didn't just call the plumber/electrician guy and have him come back and re-plumb the faucet correctly, you've never lived in Mexico.

Monday morning:

Me: "Hola, Miguel. Como esta?"

Miguel: "Bien. Bien." (Miguel is thinking, "What does the gringa want now?")

Me: "Miguel, there seems to be a problema with the faucet. Could you come by sometime today and look at it?"

Miguel: "Si. Si. (Miguel is thinking, "Posible, I will have time on Thursday.")

Me: "What time?"

Miguel: "9:00" (Miguel is thinking, "Why do they continue to ask me this stupid question?")

Me: "This morning?" (Disbelief)

Miguel: "Si. Si. " (Miguel is thinking, "These gringos, they will believe anything.)

Same Morning, 11:00 am

Me: "Hola Miguel. Where are you?"

Miguel: "I am on my way. I will be there in 15 minutos." (Miguel is thinking, "Posible I will have time on Friday.)

Me: "Okay, because I have to be somewhere at 1:00 pm"

Miguel: "Si. Si." (Miguel is thinking, "So what?")

Same day, 3:00 pm:

Me: "Hola Miguel." (I'm not even going to ask.)

Miguel: "Lo siento, Senora. I will be there manana." (Miguel is thinking, "If she would have stopped calling me, I probably could have made it on Sabado.")

So instead of being held captive in my own home for a week, I decided that I would just wait until the next time I had to call "Miguel" for another more urgent problem and then I would corner him and not let him leave until he fixed my faucet. In the meantime I would just learn to use the faucet the way it was wired, I mean plumbed. Not! And I have the scald marks on my hands to prove it.

I swear up until the minute I left, I continued to make the same mistake so why now that I am back in the states has my mind finally decided to rewire itself and start working the way I wanted it to in Mexico?

Oh, I get it. It was waiting for manana.

"Ow!!! Damn that water's hot!"

 

P.S. The pic above is some of our workers not waiting for manana.