Today ended up being an off day, minus a 15-minute rush job. I still feel like I was hit by a bus, but I really wanted to deal with my truck since I want to run errands this week. My pay had surprisingly landed (PayPal transfers to Mexico accounts seem faster than to Canadian accounts!) so I walked to Autozone first thing this morning. There, I bought their cheapest battery that would fit my truck. I was told I would have to pay $350 more than the quoted price because I was not turning in the old one for recycling, but if I came back by Friday with the battery, they would reimburse me the $350.

A cheap Uber ride later and I was home, where I texted my mechanic to let him know I had a battery and to see if he’d had any luck finding me a used tire.

We met up some hours later and he said he hadn’t found used tire but did I have a spare? Hmm. Good question! But if I did, surely it would be ancient…

Turns out the spare was bolted to the under carriage. There was no way to really inspect it there and the mechanism for releasing it was so rusty there was nothing to do but destroy it. I gave the go ahead, of course.

To my immense surprise, the spare was only about seven years old and in apparently great shape. It finally hit me — when I had new tires put on in Assiniboia ahead of my first trip to Mexico, the guys at Kal Tire must have swapped my older spare with the best of the tires they had pulled! My mechanic here said there’s no way I am to drive outside of the city except maybe to Progreso with that tire, but he’s sure that I’ll be fine tooling around with it just in Mérida. He is still going to look for a used one that’s newer. But in the meantime, I’m good to go. Total cost of installing the new battery and the spare, $200! I’m telling you, having a good mechanic next door is fantastic!

You only need three wheels, right?

I went for a test drive back to Autozone, where I got my $350 back without any fuss. By the way, I really love that Autozone (Prolongación Paseo de Montejo/Calle 1-H) — customer service is really good. I know there is at least one store closer where I could have bought the battery, but the price was the same and the service when I went to get a quote wasn’t awesome. So I prefer to support the store where I shopping is always a pleasant experience.

So now I have my truck back to get groceries tomorrow, which will likely also be an off day. That’s okay — I’ve been pushing it very hard and this cold just won’t go. Hopefully, it will be quiet again tonight and I’ll get another good night of sleep.

And with that, I’m off shortly to meet a friend for tacos, the only thing that could get me off this couch again tonight. 🙂

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Just shy of 8:30 this morning, I heard the Pepsi truck driving down my street then a BOOM.

I ran out and, sure enough, it had struck my truck and punched a hole in one of my tires. Despite multiple neighbours coming out and yelling at the truck to stop, it got to the corner, then hit a hard turn onto 21 and raced to 60, skipping its usual stops. There’s no way they didn’t know they did something bad.

I went to the expat group I trust for advice — lots of long-timers here who live in the real world as well as Mexicans so I knew I’d get advice for how such things are handled by locals. I had one who did ask if a burst tire was worth a driver losing his job at Christmas, but she was drowned out by the advice to call 911 and request police. This was a hit and run, plain and simple, and the value of the damage was immaterial.

I felt like I lost all my Spanish when the 911 operator picked up, but he repeated everything back to me and understood me perfectly. He promised to send police but, as expected, police never turned up. Even if they had, to make an official-official claim, a denuncia, you have to go in person to an agency called the Fiscalía, which handles the actual investigations.

I then called my insurance company and was shocked that they had no one who spoke English who could help me since I have “Gringo insurance.” I knew I only had third-party liability, but I thought they might be able to liaise with Pepsi’s insurance. Nope, there was nothing they could do for me (the expected answer).

I then called Pepsi’s local office and the person who picked up the phone took my info and said someone would call me back.

They did call me back some time later and even found someone who speaks English at about the level I speak Spanish. So we had a Spanglish conversation. It was clear Pepsi was giving me the brush-off as they said they could not do anything since I did not have the truck license plate number. This was a regularly scheduled truck on a regular route so there’s no way they didn’t know which truck and which driver was involved. I got a name and number to call back the next time I saw the truck. *insert shrug emoji!*

Sometime after this, I got hold of my mechanic and he said he’d have a look. He was quite peeved on my behalf, saying the Pepsi driver has caused damage to others before and that, really, he’d deserve my filing a denuncia. He later confirmed that there was no other damage and that he will find me a cheap used tire. So that’s as far as I was willing to take things seeing as I’d lost half a day of work and a used tire won’t break the bank.

The day was not a write-off, however, as I got in some good practice for the day I have a life or death emergency. 🙂 I’m glad I finally have a support network here that can show me how things are done here, not how they “should” be done.

My last full day off was October 13th. I’ve since had the odd half-day or been able to finish early enough to have a full-ish evening, but, really, I’ve been riding it hard. Last week in particular was nuts and today had to be a day off.

Of course, I woke up at the crack of dawn raring to go on my massive to-do list!

I started off by playing with Bonita, then put on laundry and weeded a jumbo garbage bag’s worth of plants from the yard. Then, coffee and catching up on emails with my dog snoring at my side.

Just as I was thinking of getting going again, B’s groomer texted to say she was nearby and could come cut her nails. Great timing! B was sooo relaxed during that. Her groomer says that she can’t believe the progress B is making at being less skittish.

My truck battery died over a week ago and I haven’t had time to deal with that. So after B’s spa treatment, I walked over to a nearby battery store to get a quote for the cheapest they have (since I only likely have two years of use left on the truck). They quoted me the same as Autozone and Sam’s Club had, so I messaged my mechanic to see if he can find me a good condition used battery.

Somewhere in all of this, I did some research about my iPad Mini 2’s battery drain issues (yes, there was a theme to my day off!). I ran some diagnostics and learned that the battery is fine and that the battery issues are software-related. To my surprise, while I was told to skip iOS 11, which I thought meant my iPad was now obsolete, iOS 12 was getting rave reviews for reviving many a tired iPad Mini 2! So I updated the iPad and spent some time exploring the new features.

Since I had diagnostic tools running, I performed a battery check on my phone and discovered that its battery was definitely toast! I was quite crushed as I really like that phone and don’t otherwise have any reason to want another. I looked at the used market here and ascertained that to go to a used iPhone 7 would be around 6,500 pesos. So that was surprisingly doable if I could find a used one I could trust. But I really didn’t want a new phone, so I decided to look into a new a battery. I’d priced a battery replacement for my iPad and it didn’t make sense (thousands of pesos). Well, to my immense surprise, I discovered that my model of iPhone is eligible for a 649-peso battery replacement service, but I only had until December 31st to qualify!!!!!!!

I made an appointment at 12:40 with the Apple repair place around the corner. Unfortunately, they could not get the new battery for at least a week and I’d have to leave the phone that long. I came home and decided to check with other service centres. The only one that could take me before December 31st was a very expensive Uber ride away. I decided to call the one at Gran Plaza, as that’s super easy to bus to, and scored a cancellation spot at 4PM today. I also had to go to HSBC to pay the rent so instead of going to the branch I normally walk to, I could go to the one in Gran Plaza.

Just after I got off the phone, B’s groomer messaged again that she had the flea and tick meds I’d ordered and could she come drop them off? Again, great timing. Did that and then headed off to Gran Plaza where I did the bank stuff and then treated myself to a late lunch and a very expensive ice cream that I only get on days when I’ve put in a lot of steps.

It was only about 3:40 by the time I got to iShop but I asked to see the new Mac Mini, which I am ordering this week!!!, and the new MacBook Air, which is gorgeous (pink!!!) and has a muuuuch better keyboard. I also looked at and priced a couple of USB-C to USB-A hubs, just for FYI since my Mini will come with four USB-C ports.

The service tech was able to take me early and handing over the phone was more work than I remembered from the last time I had to do that. And because of that last time, I had an older but perfectly serviceable phone to put my chip into so that I could at least receive calls while my good phone was in the shop. You know, Apple gets a lot of flack for “bricking” devices early, but they made it possible for me today to revive my ancient iPad Mini and iPhone 6, never mind that they replaced the 5C for me after it self-destroyed. Credit should be given where it is due.

I thought to get groceries after but was zonked. So I just got on a bus and went home. There, I eventually ordered tacos, which were taking forever to arrive. I thought the Uber Eats map wasn’t working, so I went to Google, which shows traffic. Those red sections explain why the delivery guy appeared to not be moving!

It’s now 9:30 and just about time for bed, but… I just remembered I forgot to get my laundry off the line! Hey, at least I didn’t forget it in the washer!

B’s snoring beside me. She’s had a full day too!

One of my most trusted sources for info about moving and living in Mexico, Sonia Diaz, has put together a booked called The Move to Mexico Bible. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but based on the information on Sonia’s website and discussions I’ve had with her, I am confident in recommending it to my readers interested in coming to Mexico. It covers everything from immigration to opening a bank account and takes into account the fact that Mexico is a large country and that what might be true in one region isn’t in another.

(Note that the above is an affiliate link through which a commissions are earned and passed on to a family in need. If you are shopping at the US Amazon site this weekend, accessing Amazon through that link will mean that all the purchases you make will help this family at no extra cost to you.)