Instead, you get another shot of my kitchen counter. The one that is starting to look like a morgue slab. For the electronic deceased.
Let me start at the beginning. As you know, I left my Samsung telephone in the back seat of a taxi in Barcelona. (That would make a good opening sentence for a novel. But not right now.) After spending a month in Europe without a telephone, the first thing I did when I returned to Mexico was to contact Kaitlyn. She always knows what constitutes cutting edge in technology.
Easy, she said. There is only one choice. The recently-released HTC One M8. (Yeah. Yeah. I know I already gave you its full moniker. But I like typing it out. It sounds like the name of a spiffy handgun.)
There was only one problem. It is not yet available in Mexico. But that is why Amazon exists. I ordered it, and was going to have a friend mule it down, until I decided to head north on my own.
And there it was at my brother’s house when I arrived -- all charged up and ready to go. A quick trip to T-Mobile for a nano chip to replace the old SIM card I use in The States, and I was ready to go. For my three weeks in Washington and Oregon, it proved to be a boon companion. A veritable laptop in my pocket.
Of course, the moment I landed in Mexico, I had no telephone service. Well, I did, but it was on roam, and my mama didn’t raise no economic fool. I turned it off until I could get a Telcel nano chip.
That was supposed to be yesterday. I walked into the local Telcel shop. The clerk pulled out a nano chip, and I opened my telephone and ejected the tray containing -- nothing.
There should have been a T-mobile chip in the tray. We looked around to see if I had dropped it. The slot is so small we couldn’t see if anything was in it. But, when I turned on the telephone, it still registered “roam.” That means the chip is stuck inside. And no matter of tapping would set it free.
Rather than start probing the slot, I decided I would drive to Manzanillo today to a mobile telephone repair shop – or the large Telcel store. Certainly, I cannot be the only guy who has had a card stick in his slot. (It reminds of my first grade experience of getting a glass bead stuck in my nose. Don’t ask.)
I was going to combine the trip with a stop at the Telmex office to pick up a modem and file a service request for my dead telephone line. But The Best Landlady in the World is already tackling that for me.
The list of Steve’s electronic goods that work as advertised is getting shorter. But there are still a few candidates that could bite the Melaque dust. For the moment, Mexico has provided me with enough challenges.
But here is some pleasant news from Mexico. The moment the airplane touched down at the Manzanillo airport, my blood pressure dropped to levels I have not seen since – well, ever. As far as I know. It was 103/65 last night. Even with all of these little bumps in the road, I am as calm as my mother.
Mexico is a good teacher.
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