It's hard to find something you're not looking for

Capri Sun. Ya know, the little juice packs that come in those cool little pouches? Hmmm. You see, I want to like them, the concept is pretty neat. The problem is my immediate association with them is a burning sensation in my throat – I can almost feel it as I’m writing. Yeah, like I’m sipping on a bottle of lava? That can’t be good for anyone. It’s even worse if I have a dry throat.  Then, after suffering lava-throat I’m left with really bad breath. I’m not certain if anyone else has experienced this, but hopefully you know about the pouches I’m talking about. That's really all I want you to picture, the pouches. We have these things in Colombia. I mean, they aren’t used for Capri Sun or any type of lava-juice, but we do have them.

Eating chicken one night I decided I wanted some ketchup. So, off to the store I went to search for some ketchup. Of course, I couldn’t ask anyone where it is because silly me forgot to look up the word before leaving the house. Okay, so I didn’t forget – I literally thought about it and chose not to look it up. That’s okay though because most of the time I can explain what I’m looking for so I don’t really NEED the real Spanish word. Anyways, so I’m on the Hunts for some ketchup (ha, did you catch that one?). I was picturing the same bottle that you are probably thinking of right now. No where could I find a bottle of ketchup.

Right when I was about to break down and ask someone, I found it: the condiment aisle! An entire aisle dedicated to mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, light mayonnaise, etc. What was strange is that there was not a single bottle on the shelves. No, not one. Each condiment came in a lovely Capri Sun style pouch with a spout that had a screw on lid. Ha! To add to that, was that there were about 3 difference sizes for each topping. Snack size Capri Sun ketchup, regular size Capri Sun ketchup and family size Capri Sun.  Okay, so they didn’t call them that, but that is what I imagined.

Forty-five minutes later (after walking to the store, wandering around looking for the ketchup, and making it back to my apartment) I had the Capri Sun ketchup in hand to compliment my chicken. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this in an earlier post, but everything here takes me about 10 times longer than it would in the states. Finding ketchup: point proven! Come to think about it, I bet if I knew I was looking for Capri Sun ketchup instead of “regular” bottled ketchup I would have found it 100 times faster. In my mind a Capri Sun pouch does not equal ketchup, but a treacherous lava juice.  It’s hard to find something you’re not looking for.