Los Flaneleros

March 13, 2011

On Tuesday of last week if I remember correctly, I had this altercation with this man on the street because I happened to park my car on a spot that he believes he has the right to charge people for. This is very common in México; there is a massive group of people called “franeleros,” this word derives from “franela” meaning flannel which is the tool these people use when drivers are looking for a parking spot. They walk around with different colored “flanelas” indicating drivers that they have an available space in exchange for a few pesos. Some “franeleros,” take however much people want to give them but some of them set their own fee starting at $20, $30 $40 and sometimes even $50 pesos depending on the residencial zone and the time the space will be occupied. At the beginning of each month I always change about $250 pesos worth of bills into coins to hand out to children, blind and elderly people or those young men and women who stand on the corners of stop lights impatiently waiting for the light to turn red so they can clean the windshield of countless cars to make a meager $2 or $3 pesos per car (if the driver is in the mood of being generous). One of my golden rules in life is to always give a lending hand to those in need but I despise being taken advantage of under any circumstances. As far as the “flaneleros” this is not legal and as much as one may complain to have them removed, they fire back by scratching our cars, breaking the windows, stealing the mirrors and tires, they do anything to really make us see that they are in control and they always end up coming back and taking over again.
I know that these people are really hussling to pull through day by day but what really gets me going, is when someone talks to me like that man told me last week, “This is the last time I will let you park here!” It is not acceptable to see someone who acts as if he/she is in control of me when he is well aware that he’s doing something illegal. Needless to say, he really got me going and I blew out on him and by the expresión on his face, he didn’t expect me to react the way I did. He was quite shocked about what I told him especially the way I said it, I didn’t lose my cool as fired up as I was. This is not the first time this has happened though, over the years I have learned to put many people in their place when it comes to standing out for myself because sometimes people are very agressive and many times they think they can push me around. When I was much younger I was very timid and always afraid and I’d let a lot of things go.
But the older I get, the more confident I feel and the more agressive I’ve become when it comes to getting down and dirty with nasty people. Another one of my top rules in life is to NEVER be agressive or arrogant without a reason but sometimes it is necessary to give certain people a little taste of what they want. I meant to take some quick shots of a “flanelero” but I kept forgetting my camera until today. I think I caught him off guard but maybe not because I just realized that he was looking right at the camera when I took the photo. LOL! Now I hope I can download it because my laptop is down and I keep falling behind. This is the third time my computer gets hacked and I am mortified because I lost TONS of information, contacts, years worth of work and translating and teaching material, about 70 posts and articles I had written, health and fitness Pictures and more.