We wanted to not only see San Luis Potosi, but also take some time to do some much-needed shopping. When we moved to Guanajuato, we wanted to live in a mostly pedestrian town so we would not have to have a car. Little did we know there would be no end of trouble in trying to find New Balance shoes in my size and width, but also women's undergarments for my wife. In Guanajuato, and I mean this in the nicest sort of way, there are big-busted women who appear to share the same bust size as my wife. However, there is a problem.

The women in Guanajuato also seem to have trouble finding large-sized bras. Upon more than one occasion, other foreign men have commented to me that the big-busted women in this town seem to try and stuff themselves in bras that are three sizes too small. The reason: They can't, just like my wife, find the right size. We even tried looking in Leon, which is a big city. It was a failure. So, there I sat, not too far from La Catedral, while my dear wife was at the Sear's store looking for a bra.

San Luis Potosi seemed to figure out how to bow to American Business Imperialism by importing American products and selling them in stores that fit the local area's architecture. Here was a Sear's store that didn't look like a Sear's store. City planners made it blend in to the rest of the buildings that surround the plaza. It looks like it belongs there, as well it should. My only gripe is that the store has large picture windows, which are not like the windows in the other buildings. I would have preferred more of the beautiful stone that made up the rest of the building. However, a compromise is better than nothing, I think.

While sitting there counting the buildings I liked and the ones I wished the city would tear down and put something in their places that blend in, I heard a horrendous roar in front of La Catedral. There stood a man, beating a large coffee can with a plastic coke bottle. I thought he was blowing a Kazoo to accompany his percussion instrument, only he wasn't. It was his singing voice. He was so horrific that even Mexicans began complaining to the policemen patrolling the plaza. They promptly went over and ran him off. At the same time, some sort of political protest was forming on the other side of the plaza. After my wife finished her shopping, we walked through that crowd to a little café that serves decent coffee and cake. I decided to take a look after a frugal repast to see what they were protesting.

The gigantic banner read something like this (written in blood red):

Two years without solutions (this is politics everywhere—what else is new?)
No more kidnappings (kidnappings in San Luis Potosi??)
No more pollution (where do I sign up?).
No insecurity (don't we all wish this?)
No repression of the unions (eeeek!)

This protest went on for two days and not once did I see fights, arguments, or a public lynching. It was fairly peaceful. People brought food, so it seemed more like a picnic than a protest. Unfortunately, the protesters blocked the entrance to the Governor's Palace, which was one place we wanted to see. Next time. Another thing we noticed was that there were not a lot of smokers in public.

Coming from the States where smoking is outlawed almost everywhere, I had just gotten used to being able to breathe fresh air in stores, restaurants, and malls. Then, I came to Mexico. In Guanajuato, if you are ever there, make a note to see how many people on the streets are smoking. It is astoundingly prevalent. So, this is something I noticed right away since I have respiratory illnesses and watch for meandering clouds of lethal second-hand smoke in order to avoid them. In Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi, there appears to be a smaller portion of smokers in the population than in Guanajuato. I like that a lot.

Since the wife could not locate enough appropriate undergarments, we went to the very American-style shopping mall. The downtown Sears employee actually called the other Sears store (a real rarity) to see if that store had anything for my wife. They were holding a bra in her size, so off we went.

I love the names Mexicans give things. They name something and keep the name until someone comes up with a better idea, whereupon they think nothing of changing it. That's why streets in Guanajuato and elsewhere can have so many names, something that has to confuse mapmakers to no end. The mall we were cabbing to was called:

La Plaza de Tangamanga—is that a great name, or what? This mall was very American with an eclectic mix of the familiar and strange.

There was, of course, the Sear's where my wife hit pay dirt! There was Tenimundo, a three-screen movie theater, Karmel Kentucky-Fried Chicken, Tortas Tangamanga, Tiberius Pizzaria, and a host of hoity-toity places like General Nutrition and Ralph Lauren. Who could build a mall anywhere without including a Ralph Lauren?

I sometimes wonder if I really moved to Mexico. Where am I? I feel like I'm back in Kansas City.

Even with some really high-price boutiques, the clientele seemed to me to be a bunch of K-Mart shoppers looking at things they would rarely be able to afford to buy. However, they all seemed to have cell phones surgically attached to their ears (cell phones, they could afford). Teens, loose and unsupervised, ran around the place and sat on benches engaged in the pre-mating ritual of throat swabbing. I saw several pairs of hot bunnies sitting in front of a store called "Oki Doky." Thank you NAFTA!

I made a fatal error in cajoling my wife to throw down too much money to eat in an American restaurant in the mall. I was bedazzled by the fact they had a buffet. What I could not see from the windows is that the buffet was full of crap and you had to pay a crappy price for the honor of eating like a pig in their crap trough. Live and learn, my wife will tell me forever.

What was delightful was the men's room. I am dementedly thinking that the crappy price I paid for the crappy meal was worth it when I saw the high-tech crapper.

In this bathroom, they had something called "Orimatic" urinals. These were amazing. When I approached the urinal, a little LED screen lit up. It said, "Operator Detected." Never have I heard of someone using a urinal called an "operator." I took the better part of 5 minutes trying to see just how close I would have to be for the thing to detect me. I would inch forward ever so slightly until it zeroed in on me. This was delightful fun that made me feel much better after spending what I did on the meal.

The "Orimatic" was also an auto-flusher. The little screen would tell you what was happening at each stage of your urinating experience so as not to leave you uninformed. This restroom also had an auto paper towel dispenser, which must be the latest in bathroom technology in San Luis Potosi.

I was in the little café off the plaza when I felt the call of nature. I found a unisex facility that was built for midgets. Anyway, the bathroom was so small that to close the door, I had to suck in my middle-aged gut, wiggle behind the door, and then close it. It was so small that I kept inching too close to the sensor on the auto-dispensing paper towel machine. I kept setting the devilish thing off. After it was all over, I was picking up a half a roll of paper towels from the floor and stuffing them into my pockets. I didn't want anyone to know I had set the monster to perma-dispense. If I had thrown them away in the trashcan, I would have been found out. I had to ditch the evidence. When I walked back to the table, I looked like I had a severe tumor problem on my legs.

I ditched the towels in a bin outside the café and hoped no one saw me. I especially hope the café employees didn't witness my faux pas as I plan to drink coffee there on my next visit to San Luis Potosi.