For the first time ever, I actually managed to get something internationally shipped to my address in Latin America.
It might not sound like much of an accomplishment but let us not forget the fallen soldiers that came before this package:
- A laptop in Bolivia
- An important letter regarding an estate in Mexico
Both items which unfortunately never made their way to me.
Where did they go?
Well, from what I know, the laptop that was headed towards Bolivia likely found a nice home somewhere in Santiago, Chile as that was the last place it was recorded being at.
As we speak, some 5’2 midget Chilean dude who makes 225 a month working a postal office is watching lesbian Russian porn with my old laptop in the shittiest neighborhood of Santiago as we speak.
And the letter?
Who knows.
Maybe a Mexican stole it and is doing to best to prove that he is me so he can inherit a little bit of cash.
Then he can finally afford the best HB 6 prostitutes to take to a motel.
Finally, his dry spell of 7 years will end!
So imagine my shock when the package I was waiting for actually arrived to Mexico City in 2 days!
However, my luck soon ran out as I wrote in previous articles.
Right away, the driver had difficulty trying to find my apartment in a neighborhood known as Pedregal de Santo Domingo.
Which, to be fair, is understandable because the numbering system is all fucked up in this area.
One house has the number 314 and the next one will be 21 as I wrote here.
For some odd reason though, the dude never called me when he showed up to my street last Friday.
He has my number!
Couldn’t have done a quick call to notify me that he was here?
I was literally in my bed waiting for a knock on the door or a phone call that day.
Put aside everything else I could’ve done that day so I would be ready to get this really important package.
But, for some odd reason, it just didn’t cross his mind to give me a quick call.
Even though we paid like 80 bucks to have the package shipped extra fast.
Mexican customer service. Let me tell you….
So, in the following days, I received a notification from UPS saying that they want an update on my phone and email to contact me.
So I gave them the same information that I gave when the package was sent initially.
And I waited.
After an entire 24 hours of waiting, I never once got a call or email from them.
So, in the following day last Tuesday, I called them because I figured “fuck it, I’ll just go to their office myself.”
Though, as you can imagine, UPS has various offices in Mexico City so it’s not like there was one I knew to go to.
Calling UPS: Dumb Customer Service
So looking at the phone number I was given, I call UPS last Tuesday.
Initially, I had some difficulty getting an actual human on the other end to answer the phone.
There was a separate phone number that I was told to call by their machine but I got a message saying “this number doesn’t work anymore” after calling it.
Still, I ultimately got to another person.
You can read more about the encounter in this article here but I’ll summarize it for you now.
Basically, I switched the conversation to English out of circumstance and the lady actually spoke English well enough.
Though, as I said in the other article, her accent was fucked up and for once I understood the struggle of the rare Mexican who has difficulty understanding the gringo accent in Spanish.
But, while her English was overall good, I did end the conversation with doubts that she put in the correct information or understood my English properly.
For one, she didn’t understand what the number of my house was and put in something different than what I told her so I had to correct her on that.
And she also thought I said that my house is blue when I told her that it’s the house next to my house that is blue.
In fact, from what I later found out, she ignored literally almost all of the description of the house that I gave her.
As we’ll see soon, the package that I got had a note on it saying “the house is blue” when I corrected her and told her for a second time that my house is not blue but it’s my neighbor’s house that is blue.
And all the information about what my house looks like – some red paint on the wall (opposite of blue, huh?), a black gate, a lot of vegetation, a brick house behind the black gate and a sign that says in Spanish “respect the space and I’ll respect your car.”
Literally she didn’t put in any of that information to help the driver find my house.
Ah, typical Mexican customer service at its finest.
In fact, if I had not taken measures to find the driver myself as we’ll get to, I never would have gotten the package today.
“I’m Waiting for the Man”
The Velvet Underground -- I'm Waiting for the Man
Though, unlike the song above, I was actually waiting for a package with some debit cards and not drugs today on Wednesday.
On the UPS website, it told me that my package will show up “by the end of the day.”
Though, as the lady told me, they could arrive anytime from morning to night.
Still, I wasn’t going to sit outside for an entire day waiting for this dude.
Given he showed up last time at around 6 PM and the website says “end of the day,” that’s when I began taking this seriously.
At around 5:30 PM, I walked outside, put a chair down on the sidewalk outside the black gate and began waiting while playing with my phone as you can see here.
With a bottle of black tea and vodka in hand, I decided to sit down keeping myself entertained until I saw a UPS vehicle.
Though, being honest as this is Mexico, I wasn’t sure if the dude would show up in an actual vehicle with the letters UPS or if it’d be just any normal looking vehicle or motorcycle.
Any vehicle I saw parking itself on the street I gave a good look at to see if it’d be a delivery driver.
And I occasionally did get up to walk down the street if I saw a vehicle park way down the end because I knew that Google Maps claims that my house is a specific house way down the street that isn’t actually where I live based on my address.
In short, I waited about an hour and a half for the dude to show up.
By the time it was 6:30 PM, I genuinely started to think that this dude wasn’t going to show and they’d just claim that they arrived but didn’t.
I honestly wouldn’t put have put it past them given this is Mexico.
I like Mexico but, after enough time dealing with customer service in this country, I truly could see the driver just parking his vehicle somewhere to grab some tacos de pastor, forget about me and move on to end his shift early.
A Screenshot of the Mexican Barrio
And, during this wait, I realized that, in a way, the scenery outside represented perfectly my Mexican life.
You could see it all!
Cute Barrio Gals walking around showing lots of skin whose IQs might be south of 50 but will seemingly give good head to anyone with a pulse.
More conservative looking women walking with their children.
Grandpas & grandmas probably going to church or something.
The Gordita lady down the street making awesome cheap food as always for a buck or two.
Homeless drunk people with their Tonayan laughing “no mames wey!!!”
A roughed up homeless looking man way down the street looking like he’s smoking something (crack or what is that? I’ve seen drug use like that here before but not sure…) before laying on his back playing dead.
Cars that look like they belong back in the 1970 to 1990s.
Some odd religious statues placed here and there.
A crippled man in a wheelchair half struggling to push himself over bumps here and there on the fucked up road/sidewalk.
Homeless dogs & cats barking & meowing endlessly with a random neighbor yelling "CALLATE!!!"
Amounts of random trash blowing with the wind across the concrete.
Another young man across the street sitting down also seemingly watching the neighborhood for whatever reason.
Hustlers running around looking to sell or buy whatever yelling “AGUA!!! GAS!!! COLCHONES!!!”
Cumbia playing in the background from somewhere.
Children playing soccer way down at the end of the street.
A blue sky increasingly getting darker and with a small chill.
Rough looking buildings that look like ideal places to kidnap someone to with wires everywhere.
Corrupt cops with eyes darting around looking for their next victim to extort for a bribe.
Endless traffic with the occasional near accident like one car that almost hit a motorcycle dude.
And you think to yourself….
“Ah, these are my people! This is Mexico! The good life!”
What would be a fitting song?
The World is a Ghetto -- War
At any rate, the wait continues.
Finding Jesus Moment
With the sound of upcoming vehicles heading towards my direction, my attention always goes up as I wait to see what it looks like as it gets within view passing some vehicles blocking my vision.
And, time and time again, it’s never the UPS vehicle.
As 7 PM rolls on by, my hope continues to die.
But I have yet to receive an email notifying me that the driver couldn’t find the address like I did last time so I suspect that there’s still good reason to be hopeful that he’s just running a little bit later than last time.
And finally, after hearing the sound of another vehicle drive closer to me, I see a brown van pass by.
My eyes scan it and I see the letters “UPS.”
It’s not Jesus Christ that I finally found but a Mexican Jesus at the very least. Good enough!
I immediately jump up from my chair.
“Hey! Hey! UPS! UPS!” I began shouting.
And I get up close to beside the window of the driver saying to him in Spanish “UPS! Estas buscando Matt? Es yo! Soy Matt!”
And I spooked the living shit out of this dude.
With it being dark now in a rough looking neighborhood and a complete stranger shouting at him “it’s Matt! It’s Matt! I am Matt!” he looks heavily concerned.
His eyes show fear.
And he says to me “no, no, no tengo nada” and he speeds up his vehicle.
Cocksucker.
Did he legit think I was trying to rob him?
As you can see here, I pursued his vehicle.
I made sure to take a picture so that, if the UPS driver does completely ditch me and the neighborhood, then I got proof that he ran away from me.
“Your fucking ran from me! What type of customer service is this, Mexico?!”
You know, as I always say, Mexicans aren’t the toughest men on the planet.
This dude out here acting like a sissy ass bitch because I want my package.
He finally parks his vehicle down on the side of the road right in front of the house that Google Maps keeping telling people is my house based on the address when it isn’t my house.
All the way at the end of the street.
And I walked up to the window again and the dude looks up startled asking “what do you want?”
At this point, I realize I might have gone full retard chasing a UPS driver down at night shouting out “hey! It’s Matt!” in my gringo accent in a rough neighborhood.
“Maybe he does think I might rob him?” I realize again.
At any rate, I explain easily and quickly enough that like “hey, you’re looking for Matt, right? To deliver a package? At this address? That’s me. I was waiting for you.”
It was that moment where he seemed to relax with a half-smile on face and little chuckle going “oh, you’re ….”
Then he looks at the envelope.
“You’re Matt?”
“Yeah, bro, I’m Matt. I told you already.”
Then he gets out of the vehicle.
I point to him down the street explaining how “in this neighborhood, the numbering system is all fucked up. My house is actually at the end of the street.”
“Where at?” he asks.
We then walk over and I pat the red wall saying “this is it!”
And he begins to explain “yeah, this neighborhood is kinda difficult. Ugly. Was hard to find your house last time.”
“Right, yeah, well this is where I live. In the future if you’re delivering down here, you might want to give a call. Easier that way” I said.
Then we got to it.
Showed him my ID.
Repeated my phone number to verify it’s me.
Signed some machine.
Then we made small talk for like 5 minutes.
He seemed curious about what I’m doing in Mexico and the dude seemed pretty likeable for small chat.
At any rate, he carried on back to his vehicle and I got back inside.
And, as you can see here, he was looking for a “blue house” as I said before.
Now I’m kicking myself for not just speaking to the lady on the phone in Spanish because she clearly didn’t understand me but also she was too lazy to put in any of the other details to help this dude out.
Women – what can I say? Too lazy to do their job correctly and they want the 19th Amendment. Shaking my head, let me tell you…
Final Thoughts
Ironically, I soon ordered Uber Eats for some boneless and fries right after.
As I wrote in this article here, there’s a local business that sells boneless but they NEVER have boneless on the menu nor do they ever have 80% of the menu on most days of the week either.
Another little detail about life down here – it’s not uncommon for places to not have items on the menu. It’s more common down here than back home.
Still, after messaging the restaurant asking if they have boneless and being told no tonight, I had Uber Eats deliver me boneless and fries.
And, ironically enough, the Uber driver parked his motorcycle right in front of my house without any issue whatsoever.
No guidance needed.
No having to wait for nearly 2 hours in front of my house for him.
Nothing.
How can a UBER Eats driver find it but a UPS driver, after being paid 80 bucks, cannot find it?
Your guess is as good as mine.
At any rate, I enjoyed my food and took a nap.
And now enjoying a calm night with music like this below here.
Absolutely ecstatic and surprised that the debit cards showed.
After one too many things fucking up in my experience in Mexico and never having success getting anything sent to me in Latin America, I actually got the damn package to arrive.
Of course, as I wrote before, the trick is to not rely on the Mexican postal service but go for a superior AMERICAN private postal service like UPS.
Let me tell you – nothing makes me more proud to be American than to see the superiority of our companies do it better than local delivery institutions.
Tonight, my heart bleeds Red, White & Blue.
Brings a tear to my eye.
With the beautiful music above playing and some vodka & black tea mix to enjoy.
America the Beautiful. The Best. The #1.
At any rate, thanks for reading.
Follow my Twitter here.
Best regards,
Matt