Pumped Up and Deflated

I had to pick up a couple of things at the market this morning in preparation for the fiesta this afternoon so I asked if there was anything else we needed. I was told no and headed out the door. Before I made it to the stairway in the hall our door opened and I was asked to pick up five loaves of bread. I got so excited I almost skipped to the market. Let me explain.

Whenever I go to the bakery I usually only buy one loaf of bread and I can never even finish this by myself before it goes stale. The bakers always ask me when I order my single, lousy little loaf of bread if I would like anything else. I never do want anything else but I almost want to order more just to fit in. I see older Spanish women at the bakery ordering prodigious amounts of bread. Do they work in an orphanage? Perhaps they run a soup kitchen which requires them to buy so much bread every day? These are the kind of thoughts that go through my mind as I walk out of the bakery with my one, little, shitty, loaf of bread.

But today I was going to buy five loaves! I felt like a Spanish Pinocchio. “Today I am a real boy!” Since I was buying such a very Spanish quantity of bread on this day I didn’t feel like such a dummy bothering the baker to explain to me the different loaves they had for sale. There are certain privileges that come with being such a big spender (total price for five loaves: 3.45€).

Some guys enjoy the status of wearing an Armani suit or driving a Porsche. With women, who the knows what their idea of status entails? A Prada bag? Gucci shoes? For me, right now, it’s walking around carrying five loaves of bread. Cancel that shipment of Viagra; I don’t need it anymore, not today, thank you. I didn’t want to walk straight back home; I felt that I needed to show off a bit. I decided that I’d go have a coffee at the bar in the market, and not my usual, touristy café americano, I ordered an espresso, or a café solo as they call them here. God, I really wanted someone I knew to see me right now. Just when I was at the height of my status high, an older Spanish guy elbowed up to the bar to get a REFILL on his red wine. It was 09:44, that’s a.m., like “in the morning” for you civilians. So much for me being a big shot. I just got punked by some 80 year old stud. I felt like half a sissy. If he had one of those cartoon thought balloons over his head it would say something like, "Out of my way, coffee boy. Maybe you should go fix your makeup."

I laid the money for the coffee on the bar and slouched out the door.