I finally thought it: “I want to go home.”

This morning, my arms full of dirty clothes, I opened the door to our tiny washer/dryer combo and discovered the sheets I’d placed there last night were still wet. I’d already tried to dry these sheets twice. Did this mean our dryer was broken, too? I screamed in my head, and I think it reached Mars.

The past few days have tested my patience. First we didn’t have water. Then we didn’t have hot water. Then I got a haircut from an aggressive Mexican stylist who gave me spiky bangs. Then the telephone installation guy broke Crayton’s nightstand. Then he said, Oh señorita, actually you can’t get a phone line in your building, the “network is saturated.” Then I woke up to find the wet sheets. Meanwhile three other loads waited, staring at me with their dirty eyes.

At that moment, the United States suddenly seemed like paradise. Hot water gushes from the faucets without anyone worrying where it comes from. A person can call up AT&T — or a carrier of their choice — and receive a phone line without much fuss. Few people worry about whether they’ll have water or gas tomorrow. And they don’t get scratch paper shoved in their faces during business transactions. GOD. What is it with Mexicans and scratch paper? Is it leftovers from the dearth of fliers people give out on the street? I got a Dianetics one today (headlines: “Depresion? Estres?”) and was seriously considering purchasing it.

So yeah. I thought it.

I wanna go home.

Eventually, after banishing myself to my room and playing with my new iPhone, I calmed down. I took some clothes to the cleaners and passed a quiet street that reminded me of what I like about this country. An old, osteoporotic woman walking ahead of me called “Buenos dias!” into a cafe. The man behind the counter yelled back, “Buenos dias!” His voice sounded raspy, like he’d smoked too much.

When I got home, the maintenance man in our building showed me how to light our water heater’s pilot light, and I read the instruction manual to learn how to keep the thing going. (The whole while feeling like a dumb American for not knowing a shred about water heaters.) About an hour later, our hot water had been restored.

The sheets went into the dryer a third time. At the end of their three-hour cycle, they were dry too. (I have now purchased a clothesline.)

One beer and a few Hershey kisses later, life is really not so bad. And I’m coming around to seeing the other side all this, which is that as an American, I’ve been spoiled to believe that natural resources like gas and water are in endless supply. Obviously they’re not. Readjusting my world view is part of the reason we moved down here in the first place. Just wish it was more “lazy conversations with Mexicans over coffee” rather than “wake up, surprise!, there’s no water.”