How to Shut a Town Down

As I'm sitting in Olga's eating breakfast, I notice a steady stream of traffic flowing by. Olga's is on a side street so this makes no sense.

After breakfast, I head up to the town square, negotiating a detour which caused the traffic by Olga's, only to get stopped by a worker because a children's event is taking place off the square.

They will shut down anything, for any reason, here. They love it. I think free flowing, ease of getting around, pisses them off so they arbitrarily shut something down just for the hell of it.

I go several slow, backed up blocks around the village and get to Romero's, the grocery store. I go to the produce department and pick up 9 bananas. Normally, a clerk weighs them at the produce area but I am waive to the checkout counter where they will be weighed.

Uh oh....this isn't good. Change...never a good idea in the Land of You Don't Get What You Want.

Needless to say, the checkout lines are backed up.

First, I wait on a lady who is filling out a check.

I should've had someone shoot me.

She wanders to the end of counter. Fiddles around. Wonders back. Asks for a pen. Rummages around in her purse eventually pulling out a check book. She m-e-t-i-c-u-l-o-u-s-l-y fills out a check. Wanders around for a while. Finally, hands the check to the cashier.

Now the actual delay starts. A manager has to be found. He is busy because the checkers don't know how to weigh the produce and he is helping them. Eventually he gets to the check.

Back to the checker. Now what? The lady is questioning the receipt. And on and on it goes.

Literally a full 5 minutes have passed dealing with this woman's check.

Grrr!

Now I hand my 9 bananas to the clerk.

Uh oh...she doesn't know how to weight them.

After about 5 minutes of trying, she enters one banana at a time at $.03 each. Nine entries of $.03 for each of the 9 bananas.

Boy, was it a bad idea to go to town today.

I then head over to HSBC bank. This bank is so bad there is an exodus of customers leaving the bank over the last 3 months.

I needed to get a copy of account activity for 2008 and 2009. This will demonstrate why HSBC is hated.

They bought Banistmo, the bank we originally used before it was converted to HSBC on May 1, 2009.

She got the statement for 2008 and 2009 up until April 30, 2009 when it was Banistmo. No problem! A few strokes at the computer and it was done. Lickity split. Pronto. Boom!

But not for HSBC.

She has to request the statement from Panama City. If the request is honored, I will have the statement in a couple of days...translate...a few weeks.

And that is the way it is with HSBC. They are absolutely terrible. Any other bank can get the most recent information with ease but not HSBC. They can't get ANY information with ease.

I was happy to get what I got...in the Land of You Don't Get What You Want.