The Tico Times Daily News

Inflation is an insidious thing, like a thief in the night who sneaks into closets and picks the pockets of our pants as they sleep innocently on their hangers.

Since the economic crisis of the early 1980s, inflation has been a fact of life in this country � like earthquakes, cloudbursts and litter on the streets. Now this newspaper has discovered that the colón is weakening and may reach � 600 per dollar by the end of the year. Taking into account that the dollar is hardly Arnold Schwarzenegger on the world money exchange, this is not good news, friends!

This may be due to stagflation, a phenomenon that popped up during the administration of former United States President Jimmy Carter. The situation is this: There's less money out there to buy goods, but prices still go up. This seems to defy all logic, but as nearly as I can understand, it's much like burping when you're trying to swallow. It's not fatal, but it's extremely uncomfortable.

Nowhere is this economic heartburn more obvious than in construction. Despite having many large projects on hold in this country, the local prices of building materials continue to rise. Although my wife denies this, it seems to me that the recent redoing of our septic tank drain field cost more than putting a second floor on our house 12 years ago. This even applies to the river stones used to fill the drain field. Now, mind you, these are very elegant rocks � round and delicate dove-gray stones ranging in size from a baby's cranium to a Texas watermelon. Seems a pity to cover them up, but the neighbors might complain if we left the trench open as a tourist attraction.

And one must take into consideration that the constructor of our second floor was not one of those high-priced, highly recommended firms. You know, one with real engineers who know what they are doing. I don't know where my wife found him, but all she could tell me later about contracting him was, �Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.�

This guy was � now let us be charitable here � a blithering idiot. Although he had only to perforate the wall between the bathroom and the hallway, he planned (before I threw a truly monumental tantrum) to put the bathroom door in the laundry room. Even before this near-disaster, it was clear that his mind � if he had one � was not on his work. He made it clear at the outset that he did not install doors and didn't do windows. Although this seemed strange(something like a secretary applicant not knowing any Microsoft programs), I unwisely let it go.

We ended up spending a king's ransom after he finished because, although he installed a new electrical system, almost nothing in the great spaghetti of wires in the attic seemed to be connected with anything else. The outlets for the computer connections were mere decorations. When we used the lower floor shower heater, the breaker box would cut power if the refrigerator turned on. Not to speak of the freezing blast of water on our shivering, unsuspecting bodies. Hiring a real electrician to sort things out was the only option. He may never be the same again, but don't ask me to pay for his visits to the psychiatrist�

I was never worried about earthquakes until the second floor went up. But now when someone climbs the stairs, the whole second floor shakes. Even our housecat will raise a quiver when racing up the steps! And there were so many leaks that the gypsum came down on the lower porch and the balcony.

But, I digress �

Do you remember when the colón was divided into céntimos? They were tiny little coins about which I once complained that, while counting them out to make the fare in the darkness of a bus, I often inhaled several. I would find more when I cleaned my fingernails. But, before inflation hit in the early '80s, they were worth something. Then the street exchange rate of the colón skyrocketed. The handwriting on the wall came when mechanics began to drill holes in the coins because they were cheaper than buying washers to put on bolts. I'm not making this up�it happened!

The five-colón bank note changed overnight from the world's most beautiful currency into a collector's item valueless at the local bank. Businesses with dollar debts folded up their tents and stole silently away into the night like bankrupt circuses.

Today's colón is yesterday's céntimo. The one- and two-colón coins are gone, along with the 100- and 500-colón bills, joining the dinosaurs. A ₡500 coin is small change although, within the memory of us longtime residents, that same amount would have paid a family's bus fare to Guanacaste province..

Once I contemplated buying six hectares of land in Guanacaste for ₡18,000. Today you don't even dare suggest writing a check for that amount for fear that the recipient would rupture something in his hysterics.

Longtime Tico Times staffer Rod Hughes has a few river rocks left over which he will let go of for a mere ₡2.1 million, taking inflation between now and your phone call into account.