Riches to Rags

Yesterday afternoon, my Costa Rican mother was standing in the middle of the kitchen looking completely defeated. Finally, after a few minutes of silence, she turned to me and said, "Brandon, I don´t know what to make for dinner."

Eventually, she figured it out. And it was absolutely delicious. So, while we were cleaning up the kitchen last night, I offered to cook dinner for tonight.

After class today, I took a trip to the grocery store to gather ingredients for the meal. On my way, I made my first ever stop at a Costa Rican ATM machine. I ran through the selections, withdrew sufficient funds for dinner, and awaited my receipt.

Now, when I left the States, I knew just about how much money I had in my account. But when the receipt popped out and I glanced at my balance, I almost fainted.

Are you ready?

Account Balance:

$1,800,216.35

Ball-errrr!

It took about a second-and-a-half for me to realize that my balance was in Costa Rican Colones (CRC), but it was the best second-and-a-half of my life.

I´m a Costa Rican Millionaire, bitches.

So off I went, with my wads of cash, to the supermarket, Mas por Menos (More for Less.)

I still had no idea what to cook, so when I got there I took a moment to think it through. I wanted to cook something my family doesn´t eat very often. I also needed to find something the kids would eat, too. After a few minutes, I decided on Chicken Parmesan.

Simple to make, and a real fan favorite.

I used a combination of broken Spanish and sign language to explain to the butcher how I wanted the chicken. Then I did some quick math in my head before asking the deli counter for a quarter kilogram of mozarella cheese. And I was able to find most of the other ingredients on my own. The only thing I had trouble with was bread crumbs, but after searching for close to fifteen minute I decided to make a fool of myself. I pulled aside one of the workers, and asked him where I could find the, "pan en polvo."

"Excuse me, sir. Where can I find the powdered bread?"

It wasn´t pretty, but it got the job done.

Then I took it all up to the register.

Remember that little incident at the ATM machine? Well, go ahead and play that in reverse, and that´s what it felt like at the checkout counter.

I didn´t realize it while I was filling up my basket, but there´s a reason why they eat rice and beans in Costa Rica--it´s because things like parmesean cheese and tomato sauce are imported. To make a long story short, I got banged up for $20,000 CRC (almost $40 USD.)

Ouch.

On my walk back home, I passed by some guy on the side of the road selling avocados out of the trunk of his car. They were the biggest freakin´avocados I´ve ever seen. We´re talkin´avocados on HGH.

And cheap.

But what´s more weird? The fact that some dude was selling avocados out of the trunk of his car, or the fact that when I got home and told my Costa Rican father, his response was:

"Oh, man! Was he parked right up the street from the grocery store? If I had known he was there I would have told you to buy some--they´re the best avocados in town!"