Culture shock. Friday morning, sitting in a busy Starbuck’s in Tucson while Jim goes next door to the T-Mobile to buy an Internet card. In Mexico, you go to an Internet cafe and pay for however much time you use the computer, or just buy a cup of coffee and use your own laptop. Here, it's a big production.
A young female cop is sitting at the next table, her hair pulled untidily into a clip, her shades masking her eyes, her gun holstered on her hip. She’s wearing combat-style waffle-stomper boots and looks very formidable. Guess I should feel very safe. Across from her, a man who looks like an actor with white-blonde hair setting off his Tucson tan. Probably a plainclothes cop. This is not a date.
Behind us, a table full of women all talking and laughing at top volume. Jim is now trying to make a Skype call to the Apple store to find out if the two gigs of ram has been added to his new Mini. He should be a happy guy, with his new computer, which is half the size of a cigar box and has Intel so he can run PC programs. Sixteen hundred dollars worth of happy.
We got the Northwest renewals packaged up last night with very little friction, but getting here this morning was fraught with tension. His reaction to traffic is rage tamped down and spilling over at every intersection. I clutch the door handle and hold my breath and pray he won’t get us pulled over or hit because we have no car insurance in the States. I want to jump out of the van, but where would I go?
We have to stamp these envelopes and then mail them and go back to the room and get the California billing out. I hope we’ll be able to leave tomorrow, I miss our little house.
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