Shopping With Moises

Friends, you have not experienced the absurd until you have been squired around a Mexican Wal-Mart by your enormous Mexican bodyguard, both of you searching in vain for vanilla extract. This is how I spent my last few hours in Mexico City at the tail-end of a fabulous work trip, and I hope to goodness that this---along with my wedding day, the births of my future children, and the weekend I watched Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead 14 times in an attempt to set some sort of record ("I'm right on top of that, Rose!")---will be one of those memories I relive again when I'm on my deathbed many years from now.

My bodyguard's name was Moises. Actually, he was only partly my bodyguard: he was mostly my driver, but Mexico City being Mexico City,  Moises often got out of the car and accompanied the ladies in our group when we were embarking on solo missions. He was large, you see, Moises, and he had a shaved head, which together with the largeness served to make him quite intimidating. The hilarious thing, though, is that Moises was a teddy bear. He was, as they say, a gentle giant.

My favorite thing about Moises---apart from the time he told me that the drivers in Mexico City were "very, very crazy"  and the traffic in Mexico City was "very, very problem"---was that wherever he drove me on my last day would take, in his estimation, eleven minutes. Hotel to market? "It will take eleven minutes," said Moises. Got it, I said. And market to other market? "Eleven minutes." Okay, market to airport, then, what about that? "Mmm," said Moises, cocking his head, thoughtfully. "Maybe....about....eleven minutes?"

But back to the Mexican Wal-Mart, and how I ended up there. When I checked out of my hotel on Sunday, I still had five hours until my flight. Could Moises maybe take me to a market? As it turned out, he could. So Moises took me to the market in Buena Vista, which wasn't so much a market as an enormous warehouse---an aircraft hangar, really---dimly-lit, devoid of people, and filled with rows and rows of various Mexican handicrafts just sitting out on tables gathering dust. And it was silent. I swear to god, I was the only person in there, and so I wandered around in the dimness and the silence for a surreal forty-five minutes, picking out a couple of trinkets to kill some time---hope you missed me, darling! Here's a keyring to show you how much I love you!---and wondering if a shopping experience could possibly get more bizarre. As it turned out, it could.

"Moises," I said as we left the weird market, Moises insisting on carrying my packages like a gentleman. "Is there someplace around here I can buy vanilla?"

Moises was silent a while. Then his eyes lit up, like a bloodhound following a scent. "Wal-Mart!" he declared triumphantly.

"Wal-Mart?" I asked. "I don't really like....I mean, I'm sort of not a fan...I mean, I don't usually.....is there somewhere more authentic maybe?"

"Wal-Mart," said Moises, and drove us there. (It took eleven minutes.)

I don't know how crazy American Wal-Mart is on a Sunday afternoon (I imagine pretty crazy), but Mexican Wal-Mart sees that craziness, laughs in its face, then out-crazinesses it by 500 percent. There was barely any room to walk. I clung to Moises, who shepherded me through the crowds at a brisk trot, as we scanned the aisles frantically for what we needed. I'm pretty sure it was the only time in my life that I'll ever feel like an Olsen twin. Moises helped me select pure vanilla extract, Mexican hot chocolate, and a packet of Pringles for the plane ("Salted?" he asked helpfully "Jalapeno? Cheese?") and then we waded our way to the registers where the line, I kid you not, was about fifty people long and wrapped around the store right into the shoe department. I've never seen such a ridiculous line in my life.

Instead, we joined a different line---this one filled with people pushing carts LITERALLY FILLED TO THE BRIM, as if each and every one of them was shopping for the Duggar family---and through his unique blend of charm and cajolery (and also maybe because he's six foot five) Moises managed to get most people to let us through to the front, citing the fact that I only had three purchases and everyone else had, like, the entire produce aisle. After I'd paid, it was rush, rush, rush out to the car---Moises gallantly holding my purchases again---and then zoom, straight on to the airport so I could catch my flight. As you might imagine, it took eleven minutes.