Bulls and Napkins and Things

For the house here in Spain, I bought tons of lovely linen napkins to use with all those scrumptious meals I dream of making… Now, they’ve all been used, washed and sit wrinkled on the ironing board. Remember, we bought this house ‘furnished,’ and so I tried the two cans of vintage spray starch that sat rusting on the shelf next to the ironing board. Needless to say, they sputtered and spit and promptly clogged, so into the trash they went.

So I added spray starch to my shopping list. One thing about our little piece of heaven here in Spain is that the shopping is a little dicey. There are Hypermarkets, with about everything that you’re not looking for, with really poor selections for having to walk kilometers to not find what you came for…couldn’t find spray starch. The grocery stores are best at groceries, again, no starch. And the bricos (hardware stores) are small and also have a huge selection of stuff that you’d never find me buying from a store like that (say, kitchen cabinets or desks) and, you guessed it, no spray starch.

The only variety stores here are “Chinese Bazars.” They are on every corner (no idea how they all stay in business), everything in them undoubtedly is made in China, they are huge, and they are cheap. They carry an eye-popping amount of crap. There is an entire row of cheapo detergents in multiples of nauseating smells, a municipality of fabric softeners, and cleaning products that are yet to be discovered, but no spray starch.

Now, my Spanish is only slightly worse than my French. I caught a young lady that worked there and tried to explain what I was looking for. She understood what a ‘spray’ was, after I did the pumping action with my fingers. Then I said “spray para ropa” and did my rendition of an ironing movement. She showed me spray spot remover for clothes, spray perfume for clothing, and fabric ‘conditioner,’ whatever that is! But no spray starch. I told her ‘no,’ it makes the ropa stiff and started walking around like Frankenstein. A light bulb seemed to go off and she said in perfect English, “No, we don’t have that.” No shit, Sherlock!

So, I briskly ordered some spray starch from Amazon this morning (don’t judge me). But the happy ending to this story is that I did return home with tons of items under €2 that I didn’t even know I needed — some of the cutest teeny-tiny clothespins to use as paper clips, 4 door mats, and the absolute find-of-the-century for 80 centavos, a Veterano Osborne look-alike plastic bull napkin holder. Love, love, love him!!! I’m guessing it’s exactly fools like me who keep these stores afloat!!!

Postscript: For those of you who know me and my quirky collections, you know I love and collect bulls. And I always stop the car to take photos of the Osborne billboard bulls around the hills of Spain. If you’re interested in the history of these toros, this is a great little synopsis.

https://www.osborne.es/en/toro-de-osborne-across-the-world