(Don't fuck with me.) That stops him dead. He tells me I don't know what I am talking about. 'You have a problem.' he starts to rant at me. 'Do you remember, you showed me 3 bowls, small, medium, and large? We put them on the table, and we both decided the larger one was the best.' Now he is furious. In the past I would have been super intimidated by this. What is wrong with you?' He is yelling at me. I show him the receipt and that I was charged $1800 pesos for the large bowl. 'You are wrong, this is the large.' I try to reason with him. This is supposed to scare me or intimidate me. 'This is the medium, not the large size sink.' He stands up. In my very best California Berkeley speak I say to him, 'We have a problem.' I come close to his desk and take out the sink. He is not happy to see me like he was before. I walk into the store and the owner is chatting with a friend. Later on in the week, I wrap what was supposed to be my sink in my jacket and put it in my shopping bag. Damn! This meant not only another trip, it meant a fight. Of course, I got home, and put it on top of the table, and it was definitely not the larger one. They were so nice before they had all my money. Get it home and you will see.' They almost pushed me out the door. I mentioned it, 'I think this is the medium sized sink not the larger one that I ordered.' 'No, no, this is the larger one. 'We will call you when it is here.' It was not like I was calling everyday. I paid for it, and then had to wait for the sink. I made them unwrap it to make sure it was in perfect condition. They were not pleased but they ordered it. They tried to tell me that they could fix it. The sink and the table had to be ordered. The main reason is that everything here is more or less final sale. I went back 5 times to make sure what they had was what I wanted. I finally found a store where they were nice. It is impossible sometimes to find someone to take your money. I found a few stores that had more interesting things, but the salespeople ignored me or yelled at me. You can go to 100 stores and they all have the same stuff. I think all of you know me well enough by now, I love a good challenge, and I do not suffer fools easily. I am the least likely person to whoever wants to mess with me, that will fight back. It is actually fun in an absurd perverted way. Once you learn the rules of the game, you can play. You cannot live forever in the expat bubble paying more to avoid being caught in the viveza criolla. I believe that most foreigners leave Argentina because they cannot deal with this form of life. If you don't learn to play it, you will suffer greatly. This is the attorante in the milonga who tells you he is a lawyer when he washes dishes, or the former president Cristina Kirchner who would inaugurate the same school or public works project several times to make it look like her government was actually doing more than stealing our money. It doesn't matter where you are from, who you are, or where you live.

Lest you think only foreigners suffer viveza criolla, no. I was always amazed at how they could settle a bad situation rapidly. Some of my friends would insist on helping me. I would tell my Argentine friends and they would shake it off. Coupled with my lack of language skills (donde está la biblioteca just doesn't cut it.) most times it was impossible to defend myself. In fact, my first few years there were times I was horrified. People think of themselves first and then the consequences.maybe.Ĭoming from consumer oriented California I was not prepared for this. If you live here, you know that corruption, blaming others, and mistrust, are all a part of the social fabric.

Viveza Criolla is a lack of respect for others, for institutions, for anything that is related to the common good of a society. Viveza Criolla (literally translated means the Creole life, but it really has nothing to do with what the translation is.) One doesn't have to live long in Argentina to experience the 'Viveza Criolla.' Probably more than anything else, it is the one thing that the foreigners living in Argentina complain about.

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