Anatomically correct stick figures and new plastic

Tonight on the bus ride home I had finally gotten the opportunity of an open seat near the back of the bus, it was good to sit down and not have to brace myself for sudden movements. So I was idly looking around because there was nothing else to see but the inside of the bus - the windows were totally fogged up because its raining.

I happened to notice that someone, probably a child, had drawn a stick figure of a woman on the back exit door of the bus.

And an unbidden evil thought (those are the best) crossed my mind... why not add tits to the stick figure when you get off the bus?

I burst out laughing, a little. Anyone around me would have figured I'd just heard something funny through my headphones. I tried to put the thought away thinking... you are 35 years old and doing that is not very adult.

But hey, some would say that quitting your IT job in the USA and giving it all up to live in South America is not very adult.

And so it was rationalized.

So I got off the bus at the usual place. And yes, the stick figure was anatomically correct when I'd finished with it. I didn't look to see what anyone's reaction was, it would have brought on one of those moments where you start laughing inappropriately and can't stop.

Ah well, that melted away all the stress and headache of the entire day. Childish? Yep. Worth it? That too.

Otherwise in between the mindlessness of work (actually my job is not all that mindless its quite the opposite) I spent my lunch hour getting a credit card. Mastercard and Visa are pretty widely accepted, but in Uruguay if you want to go into hock at the most possible number of places you better have an Oca card. Besides, a national-only line of credit will keep my from buying things on the international card and leave that available for whatever stupid shit I can rationalize buying. Yeah, that's it. So anyway I had applied online for the card last week and yesterday I'd called them and was told, just bring proof of residence and you're all set.

Ok... the problem with that was that I have various proofs of residence. Remember, the mail and deliveries are not to be trusted. Furthermore just to make it even more fun I live in one building with two addresses. How is this possible, you ask? Ah, with bureaucracy, all things are possible including the really ridiculous. So I looked last night at which bills I had with me and thought real hard about which version of my address I put on the application for the card. Turned out that I had two bills that go to the other address of my apartment (but its the same apartment) and a third that goes to the office. So for last night it was out of the question to go handle the transaction. I needed a phone bill, because my phone bill goes to the version of the address I put on the credit card application.

I tried going to the phone company office last night to print a copy but I'd jumped the gun and paid the phone bill online with my other local credit card so there was nothing available to print. See, in Uruguay there are some aspects of your life where you have a lot of privacy and others where you have none. The phone company is one of those where you have nearly none. There are telephone company offices all over the country (all of them hopelessly overstaffed) with computer terminals where you can print a copy of your bill - or anyone else's if you know their number. To be fair, you only get a copy of the first page and you only get something if they have a pending bill - but still, you can find out the name that goes along with a phone number as well as whether that person pays their bills on time.

Now this machine is designed to be completely easy to use. It's a PC and monitor with nothing but a numeric keypad for punching in your number. Of course I was behind the stupidest woman on earth who either was having a problem reading the 72-point type or she was just dumb as a bag of shit. I was standing there thinking, christ on a cross, lady, you simply cannot be that dumb... but she was. It took her literally two minutes to punch in the nine digits of her phone number necessary to get a printout of a bill, and then another two minutes to decipher the screen that comes up if you didn't pay your bill last month and there are two pending - it asks you which one you want to print, naturally.

But whatever, she finally went off somewhere hopefully to evolve and I was able to punch in my phone number and get - nothing, because I'd paid my bill already.

So with the fresh memory of waiting behind a truly stupid person close at hand, I arrived home and located the bill that had the right version of the address to take with.

One of the offices that I have occasion to be in during the day is right near this credit company's main HQ so after a meeting I went over there. Not bad.. they asked for the bill and it was a little disconcerting when they wanted to keep my cedula (ID) behind the counter with them throughout the whole process - I would rather lose my passport than the cedula because losing my passport would mean dealing with the devil I know... And the woman told me to take a seat. And I waited, and waited.. and watched it just pour rain outside, thunder, lightning, the whole nine yards. Of the four people who were called ahead of me, three were approved and one was declined a card. So I knew the outcome when they called my name because the packet of paper that gets generated for an approval is bigger than for a NO. It was fairly straightforward.. have to confirm the due date each month, the interest rate ( a measly 69% annually - and yes, that number is missing a decimal point, thanks, it really is that high), the limit, etc. Then sign in like five different places and wait again while they pass that (still with my precious ID card) to the department that generates the plastic card. That took like five minutes and off I went with my brand-new blue OCA card with the clouds and both of my last names on it. (Lovely)

But it was interesting to watch the workers while I was waiting. All of them were wearing blue uniforms the color of the card, and no men, all women. The more status you had in the organization meant your uniform was a lighter shade of blue, I think. (or perhaps those women just worked there longer thus the uniform had been washed more times, who knows) And it was interesting to see how they had their employees clocking in and out for lunch. Uruguayan businesses do their best to put a class-act front end on their operations and OCA is no exception - but the back end is always ugly and cobbed together. The employees were clocking in and out on a pair of credit card machines hanging on the wall. They weren't using the trademarked blue cards but something else with a magstripe on it. And the machines were hooked up somewhere to a host with a serial cable so I can just imagine how pretty the closet is that has all the hardware to multiplex all that and feed it to whatever big Unix system they're running. But gotta give 'em points for reusing something they already had - verifone machines that had likely been returned or swapped from merchants.

Ah well, I grabbed my new credit card and made damn sure to get my cedula back, and off I went to go use the card to buy some english textbooks that my students will start using tomorrow morning. Or rather, my students will start using the photocopies of the books that I will have ready on Tuesday because I want to keep the originals in good shape for the next potential students, if indeed there are any.

So for today, I've defaced a stick figure and propped up the local economy. Now I'm off to the gym to work off the two milanesa sandwiches I had for lunch and all the chocolate I've eaten this week.