Delivery Service Competition: Burro Style

You’ve seen the annoying bumpers stickers, displaying educational competitiveness. My kid is on the Honor Roll at XYZ school.

Not annoying if you’re the parent. Your kid won the competition. You’re proud as well you should be. Dog parents have gotten in the act. A Honda driving Golden Retriever’s pet parent can sport a bumper sticker, telling the world her dog won an obedience award.

Competition is everywhere, especially in these COVID-19 times. Uber Eats vs. DoorDash for pizza. UPS vs FedEx for small appliances and shoes. Small bookshops vs Amazon Kindle apps. And it’s true around the world. Everyone is trying to maintain their lifestyle before the pandemic arrived on their doorstep and electronic screen.

Yesterday Pakistani police busted a home employer for insisting her cleaner arrive in the car boot, known as a trunk, to American drivers. That’s only one story but plenty others provide evidence that we’ll be devious to obtain items we are accustomed to having, whether it is gourmet food or hair color. And I confess to being grateful for the supermarket and restaurant delivery folk in my neighborhood.

The reader should know that my current neighborhood is in central Mexico’s beautiful colonial city, San Miguel de Allende. Its abundance of brilliant flowers and plants against centuries old stone walls, and smiling locals make me ever so thankful to be sheltering-at-home or any time in such a gorgeous location.

“Memo, Memo” called our neighbor this morning, the one with whom we share a storage area, a washer, a clothesline and a large third floor patio overlooking the town, “La burro esta acqui”, he repeated.

Memo is the nickname for Guillmero, the Spanish equivalent of William. Earlier in the week Will and Fedi, short for Federico, had discussed buying a second-hand revolving composter but concluded it did not match our gardening needs. And gardening needs we have.

In addition to the shared patio, we have four others on two additional floors which are our responsibility alone. Squirrels steal our strawberries, possums chomp on the tomatoes and winds sometimes toss the pomegranates. A property gardener comes by to water but that’s all the help we have right now.

A few weeks ago, in one of numerous conversations with taxi drivers, Will learned of a man with burros who delivered compost and dirt. A burro delivery service?

Visitors to San Miguel de Allende who have not been here for decades are stunned when they return to see only the occasional burro in the streets. Where have they gone, the visitors ask. Thirty years, even twenty years ago, burros were commonplace here as they delivered rice, beans, whatever was needed. The cobblestone street where we live is wide enough for only two burros with their bulging loads to pass. Now, only Pasiano, Blackie, and a currently unemployed burro remain, eking out a living. Competition from motorcycles, taxis, trucks, even truck taxis, and private autos have ousted them in the delivery service arena.

COVID-19 has halted the multiple weddings and festivals, occurring every weekend. Streets, shops, and restaurants remain empty. That lack of visitors in the tourist area has made the featured wedding burro, bright flowers encircling his neck and ears as he posed for photos, unemployed. No unemployment insurance for a long-suffering, hardworking burro, here or anywhere.

Will had arranged for the driver to take us to the country to meet with the burro and his keeper but the driver became ill. We accepted waiting for weeks, even months before we could acquire the prized dirt we wanted. We should have known Mexico’s coconut telegraph and ingenuity would be on top of the competition.

Today, the burro delivered to us.

Pasiano, the burro along with Blackie, his donkey buddy, arrived at 9:30 am hauling large bags of compost. Will placed an order and Saturday morning they will return, their human at the reins, delivering a special kind dirt that competitive garden shops don’t provide.

How cool is this? A delivery service that arrives on four legs, consumes no fossil fuel, does not pollute, and has a cheerful attitude? Quiet, too.

Yes, we will take the usual precautions of sanitizing everything, including us, after the delivery. Now I’ve got to Google to learn what the recommended tip is for burro delivery service. It beats the competition, for sure.