The Life of a Minority

As you all are aware, I live in PR and happen to be unlucky enough not to speak Spanish. There are some times when my husband and I are in the boonies and he will tell me not to speak English (for security reasons). Even though he is Puerto Rican, some people here don’t care and will take advantage of you anyway.

Two months ago hubby and I went to the nearby furniture store to get some coffee, end and sofa tables. We were in town so I spoke English to the owner who so graciously helped us and spoke back to me in pretty good English. She didn’t have anything that I liked on the showroom floor and offered us some books to pick something out to have it ordered.

We searched endlessly through the books. I am usually an avid shopper, but this really got to me. We were going through pages and pages of furniture only to find that I was going in circles.

We finally settled on a nice set from Lane Furniture. We ordered it, paid $700 for one coffee table, one end table and one sofa table. This seemed like a high price for just three small tables, but they were good quality and the lady was nice.

Or so it seemed.

The owner informed us that it would take 6 weeks for our tables to arrive because they were coming by ship from the States. That didn’t bother me; I knew it would take a while.

We waited.

Six weeks came by and we called looking for our tables. We were told that they would be there on June 18^th. We called back again on the 18^th and were told to check the following week. The following week we went to the store and spoke to the owner again. And again, we were ‘kindly’ greeted by her and informed of the new time line. In short, they were supposed to be ready for pick up this past Saturday or Sunday. We dropped by on Sunday and spoke to the owner (once again). She told us that DEFINITELY Wednesday we could pick them up.

Guess what? Today is Wednesday. And guess what else? We still don’t have any tables.

Today my husband went to the store and asked for the tables. When the owner told him that they didn’t have them, he reminded her that she assured us we could pick them up today. She blatantly lied to him straight in his face and stammered “I didn’t say that”. What? There isn’t a language barrier here lady, you spoke to me in plain English – not that broken stuff.

So he asked for a refund. She refused. What? “Well, the receipt says you have 24 hours to cancel for a refund”. My husband lost it. What? He started fussing at that lady saying how he wasn’t cancelling, that she didn’t have what we ordered. We were being led on the entire time. She then said, well it’s in the very back of the crate out back. However, when she checked the cargo’s manifest – our tables were not on it. Needless to say, we got our refund in full.

As we were leaving an old lady came walking in looking for her table. She told the clerk, “It’s been over a month, where is my table?”. My husband couldn’t resist and said politely to her “You’re not going to see your tables, might as well go to Rooms To Go”

We won’t purchase anything from that store again.

I told you all this story to let you all get an idea if you come here. Some places it’s okay to speak English, this is especially true if you stay in the tourist areas like San Juan. But when you come inland you must be careful, for people will take advantage of you if you show the slightest inclination that you are tourist. We aren’t tourists; we have lived here 3 years and don’t plan on moving back stateside. But just because I speak English and not Spanish, people still think that they can get one over on me.

That’s why I have my husband by my side all the time. Boy are they wrong.