An unexpected bargain

I had a happy experience today taking my tennis racquet to get re-strung.

Knowing that tennis balls are about the most expensive thing I've seen here vis-a-vis US pricing -- 7-9 bucks a can v. 2-3 bucks a can in the states -- I bought some strings online before I came here. Really good strings, 12 or 14 bucks, I don't remember.

So all I have to do is find the tennis shop and get the damn thing strung. When I first got here, I was a little scared to do this, just because of the spanish involved. As I guessed, they don't use the plain old word for "strings" (cuerdas) -- rather the "Southern Cone" (argentina and uruguay) have a dedicated word for strings on a racquet, encordado.

Anyway, I'm going to the shop thinking, hmmm, how much are they going to charge me or this. Stupid gringo, has his own strings. I get my wariness guard up. And just bringing in my own strings may annoy them, since shops of course earn a lot on the string mark-up. So I walking along thinking, how much is this going to cost? And more importantly, where do I try the "protest line" -- as in "no way, that's too much." I figured ten bucks for the labor, 30 pesos, would be on the high side of acceptable.

I have to also mention that part of my initial hesitancy on going to the tennis shop not knowing how to say "can you re-string this racquet with these strings?" is that tennis tends to be an upper-class sport here, and some of the upper class people here can be very snooty.

But, as it turns out, they were super-nice. They could tell I was a gringo, so they didn't stress me out too much with too much discussion or questions. He saw I had my own strings and had no problem with that at all. And, get this, labor for stringing the racquet? Ten pesos, or 3.20 or so. Three bucks! Ready tomorrow!

So I leave feeling happy, but a little sheepish for having been wary. Maybe I need me a little chill pill?