La Nuit Blanche

Passing on words of wisdom as I put on my makeup for an afternoon at Canning:

Do not carry anything ressembling something you can buy at a supermarcado inside your purse, say, a bottle of water, when you walk into a supermarcado. Especially if you walk into the said supermarcado, and attempt to walk out without buying anything. You will look suspicious, and the guard will stop you. She will put her hands on your purse without your permission, and open it (also without your permission).

Then she will take out the bottle of water, and accuse you of shop-lifting. She will call over the policeman stationed outside the corner. She will make a big scandal of calling over the bus-boy and telling him to check the number on the bottle, to see if it had been paid for at one of the registers.

It will do you no good to protest your innocence, especially if your castellano is going at 1/10 of the speed of that of the guard’s. The guard will not listen to you, anyway, and proceed to point her finger at you as she talks rapidly to the policeman, as they are waiting for the bus-boy to get back with the confirmation receipt. The bus-boy will inevitably come back to say that he couldn’t check the numbers, because there are too many bottles of water for him to check, and plus, they are all out of sequence now.

The only thing that will save you is if a random porteño butts into the situation, and interjects with some rational deductions on your behalf. And you will be let go if your bottle of water just happens to be cold, and the supermarcado just happens to be the kind of supermarcado that doesn’t sell refridgerated bottles of water.

Thank you.