Silent Rant

Note to self: next time bring two laptops.

My battery was getting low. Time to plug in. I reached for the nearest outlet in the internet cafe and connected the lifeline to my little MacBook. But the reassuring green light didn’t glow. Strange. I tried another outlet. Then another. Panic. I went home and tried every outlet back in our bungalow. Still nothing. By now my computer was dead.

And that meant my ability to make phone calls was dead. We had been in the tiny village of Lo De Marcos for less than a day, and I was in a serious pickle.

Several expensive spanglish pay-phone calls later, I had narrowed it down to waiting for a replacement power adapter to be shipped from the states. Great. An unplanned 5 day stop-work order. Well, could be worse, right? I was, after all, about 100 yards from a beautiful, quiet beach. And a pleasant 5 days it was, including a fishing trip out of Rincon de Guaybitos that yielded this small but beautiful dorado:

Two days ago we arrived in Bucerias, a few hours before my power adapter showed up. But it didn’t work either. $75 for the adapater, $50 for shipping, and another $32 for customs. And the power adapter wasn’t the problem.

So yesterday I went to the Office Max in Puerto Vallarta. 4 hours and 47 phone calls to my credit card company later, I emerged with a “new” MacBook. It was the last unit they had: a six-month old floor display unit, and it cost me $400 more than one of the brand new models, which would be new in the box, complete with updated software. I did my best to convince them I deserved a discount on their discontinued, used, dirty little machine. But they knew they had me. You can only walk away when you can walk away. I pride myself on always getting the most for my money, but I guess sometimes you gotta live with getting a bad deal.

Anyway, now it’s catch-up time…

Happy Thanksgiving!