comedy of errors (alternate title: puras fallas)

Ok, first of all I've been remiss in not sharing this good news sooner...  Less than two weeks ago we finally were about to rescue La Paloma from prison (aka the impound lot)!  We've already put it to good use transporting the kids to various church outings, etc.  Thank you so much for your prayers!

Second of all, I must share with you all about the other night's highly humorous adventure involving La Paloma.  You see, during it's three months of imprisonment, it apparently developed a short in it's wiring, causing the hazard and dome lights to remain on even when the motor is off, in turn causing the battery to lose it's charge very quickly if it's not disconnected.

The other night, Nereida had asked me if I could pick up some formula for her baby while I was out.  Well, I forgot.  It is yet to be determined if the fault of the following circumstances lies with me for forgetting or for Gioner for drinking milk in the first place...

Anyways, I offered to give her a ride to the nearest grocery store that stays open until 11pm (it was 10pm at this time).  We piled into La Paloma along with her eight year-old son, and headed for Calimax.  Except Calimax was out of the particular formula that Gioner drinks.  So we decided to continue on to the pharmacy Roma, which is open all night.  Except on our way their we realized we needed gas.  So we pulled into the first of two gas stations on the way to the pharmacy.  Except they only had premium gas and we didn't have very much cash.  So we headed to the next gas station, arriving just before the truck ran out of gas completely, and put a few bucks worth into the tank.  Except then La Paloma wouldn't start - that would be the aforementioned battery problem.  And no one had jumper cables.  What to do?

After analyzing the situation, we decided to call our friend Alberto.  He answered, obviously awoken by my phone call, and I shared that Nereida and I were stranded as La Paloma had died along Fundadores (the very long boulevard on the way into downtown).  Then my phone died, before I was able to give any specifics.  NOW, what to do?

Nereida had no credit on her cell phone, but lucky for us, the gas stations have just begun to offer phone recharges!  So we asked for a 30 pesos recharge, the smallest they had available.  Except they were out of recharges.  So we asked the gas station attendent if he could keep an eye on the truck while we walked the rest of the way to the pharmacy.  He responded laughingly by saying that no one could steal it anyways since the battery was dead, but agreed to allow us to leave it there (not that he could do much else, anyways!).  So we headed to the pharmacy, only to find out that they had neither recharges nor the needed formula available.  I made a mad dash to the grocery store nearby, only to find that they had just closed.  We decided to spend our limited cash supply on a 100 peso recharge card, which the pharmacy did have in stock.  We put the recharge onto Nereida's phone, just in time for her phone to die too.  It was getting close to midnight and we had a dead car battery and two dead phone batteries.  NOW, what do do?!?

We had enough coins to use the pay phone, but neither of us knew Alberto's phone number.  (And our phones are dead, remember.)  Nereida did remember her mother-in-law's number so we called that and her brother-in-law promised to send her other brother-in-law to rescue us.  So knowing that jumper cables were on the way, we headed back to the gas station.  After being back there for a few minutes, Alberto arrived.  He had been driving up and down Fundadores looking for the stranded Paloma.  We attempted to call the brother-in-laws back, but the pay phone wouldn't take coins anymore.  So, of course, just as Alberto got La Paloma started again, Armando arrives.  But since his services were no longer needed, he gladly headed back home without being too upset at the false alarm.

Cheered that we had a working vehicle again, we then realized that we still didn't have the formula which we had come out for in the first place.  Alberto agreed to accompany us downtown, as we weren't too excited about driving around that area alone in the middle of the night.  The gas station attendent once again graciously allowed us to leave the truck there, and we hopped into Alberto's car.  We arrived at another Roma 24-hour pharmacy on the outskirts of downtown, but they too were out of the necessary formula.  We then tried an Oxxo convenience store, as Alberto insisted that they carry formula which Nereida did not believe, but they were locking the doors just as we arrived.  We finally made the trek to Revolution Avenue, with it's bars and clubs that draw the night crowd and keep the stores and pharmacies open late.  Deciding to take our chance at Oxxo again, the clerk there found one small can of the formula in the back.  His words: "We always have anything you need - anything legal, that is.  That's why we're Oxxo."

Alberto dropped us back at the gas station and we climbed back into La Paloma, arriving home just after 1am.  The moral of the story?  You decide:

A) Find some jumper cables for the truck.

B) Find some money to fix the truck's electrical issues.

C) Don't turn the motor off when getting gas.

D) Make sure at least 1 cell phone is charged when going out at night.

E) Wean baby Gioner off formula ASAP.

F) Try the Oxxo 5 minutes from home.

PS - We repeated a small portion of this adventure yesterday, searching for more formula as the aforementioned small can had already been consumed.  We (perhaps unwisely) skipped option "F" above due to price constraints, then were debating which direction to head (after the first 3 stores failed us) in order to conserve gas.  Thankfully it was daylight, we both had fully charged phones, and it only took 5 total stores and a call to brother-in-law #1 (who ended up finding a can in another neighborhood where he was working and guarding it with his life until we arrived) before the infamous formula was obtained.  All this is leading me to encourage Nere to go with option "E" above...!