Shopping in Once (Ken)

I don´t know what I was thinking when I packed to come here. Honestly. I look at the clothes I brought and it looks like I was cast for an episode of "The Love Boat."

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I wish I could just pop back home, repack, and pop straight back. I just want a bit of a do-over in the clothing department. Since that is out of the question, I headed out to Once (pron: On-Say) this afternoon for a slight wardrobe enhancement excursion.

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I have been warned that Once is the place to buy cheap (and poor quality) clothes. No worries here, I always buy cheap and poor quality clothes. That is how I can afford to be the straight guy who looks gay and does it on a budget.
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It seems that all these inexpensive negocios are clusterd on Avenida Pueyrredon between Avenida Corrientes and Avenida Rivadavia. It is about a half-hour walk from my apartment, so I headed up Avenida Santa Fe.

Now, the picture here is Av. Santa Fe. I post it because of all the trees. This is a serious, downtown, shopping, banking, business, restaurant area--yet look at all the trees.

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I make my way to Av. Pueyrredon and look around. There are all kinds of shops here. Many selling really inferior stuff. The music stores didn´t have any guitars over $180 (sixty dollars). There were the Argentine equivalent of dollar stores (peso stores?).

I finally found a mensware store that had some gaberdine slacks and casual short-sleved shirts. Se llama "Manhattan." I didn´t realize that at the time. The proprietor, despite his total lack of English and my inept capacity for Spanish, was determined to make a sale. I told him I did not know my size (centemeters, you understand) and we worked through guesses until we hit it. My size was not on the shelf, so he sent his assistant into the window of the shop to see if my size was on display.

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Meanwhile, I tried on a pair of black jeans from Paris that work pretty well and a polo/golf shirt--you know, the ones with the collar and a few buttons. I picked out the olive and the black but rejected the lavender--despite his insistance. The assistant came back after snaking his way throught the window display and--sure enough--they were my size. At this point, I felt obligated to buy--he had gone to quite a bit of effort.

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Sooooo, one pair of black jeans, a pair of olive gaberdine slacks, two polo/golf shirts--tap, tap, tap--that is $140 pesos (That is US$47.67).

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I got home and unpacked my haul and found the $20 lavender shirt among my purchases. I am sure I told him, "no, solo los dos," pointing to the black and green shirts, but I guess he decided I really needed that shirt and he was going to sell it to me whether I wanted it or not.

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Normally, I´d feel scammed. Maybe I should. But, it is a US$6.67 shirt. And, it is kind of pretty. I would return it, but, come on, it´s less than seven dollars. Besides, I didn´t get a receipt. Hmmmmm.