I realize my fanaticism on a few topics, like sanitation, for example, is MY problem. I’m telling on me as much as on the shop. Things are different here and I’m a snob. In the states, it would be fine for me to be prissy and demand things be done according to the U.S. Department of Health standards. To what I’m used to. To "my standards" (ugh).

But I didn’t come here to live in a little U.S. with one department or another breathing down everyone’s neck telling them the "right" way to run their business, their jobs, their sex lives, their private lives. I came here to escape all that. I wouldn’t have Costa Rica any other way. I don’t think a spotless salon would be an improvement. It works just fine for the owners and the customers. Who the hell am I?

Costa Rica ain’t the U.S. Not yet, anyway. They are working on
becoming a servant state with regard to the political, financial and
fear-mongering arenas. Diligently working. It’s kinda creepy. But for the most part, it’s still the sleepy little jungle country it’s always been. A real mañana land: friendly, forgiving, forgetful.

"Everything has a price," my dear Sandford says to me over and over and over again. Everything has a price. The price I will gladly pay to not be in a little U.S. is to actually live and let live. I LOVE that the choice on where to have my nails done is completely up to me. Buyer beware gives me the power to choose and decide. The choice about how this shop goes about providing their services is completely up to them. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Ok, I would change one little thing. If I could and I know I can’t. I would love Costa Rica to just go about it’s business and stop trying to become a little U.S. But methinks they are too far down that road. Pity. Pretty soon that beauty parlor will have those jars of blue liquid and spotless corners and there will be a certificate on the wall saying "INSPECTED BY #4". Won’t that finally please Criticia?