January 29, 2010. Mexico. History.

Your background never really leaves you. When speaking to Karen last evening, she mentioned that she enjoyed shopping at the new Walmart, just outside Bucerias. It is the same store we went on our arrival. She mentioned the cleanliness and the produce, the width of the isles and the amount of light. But the best part she said was the prices. Two days after her first grocery shopping at the new Walmart, Karen made a point to shop at Mega in Bucerias, just to compare prices. She was pleased to find that the Walmart goods were cheaper. Now she did not just glance at the prices of one or two items. She checked out ten specific objects that were in both stores and nine of the ten things were cheaper at Walmart.

Now this is not a poor lady and she realizes it is ridiculous, so she was laughing when she was telling me the story. I laughed too, but I also know that sometime or other she had to pinch pennies, and she never has gotten over it. I do not know anything of her life before arriving in Canada, but I know she is German and is close to my own age, and I know they started businesses in Canada and started them from scratch. I commented that developing the habit of being frugal was very useful, which she agreed. Her next comment was interesting. She said "Both our children and our grandchildren know nothing of being frugal. They all spend as if there is no end of money".

Many years ago, I went shopping with Aunt Essie from Peterborough. She was a wealthy lady, shopping in a store owned by her son Ernest. She was there for oranges and I went just for company as my Mother and Father were doing the services on the Sunday and I accompanied them. Aunt Essie, out loud, calculated which oranges were the best buy and ended up buying the smallest oranges, as by weight, you got the most fruit. I was astonished but of course, never said a word. Aunt Essie and her husband built that store up from nothing and never got over counting the pennies. Neither did Karen, my new friend in Mexico.