Since I'm about to leave Guatemala after living here for over six years, I thought I'd jot down some experiences as to remember them.  I'm not making this up.

At a store, my father asked for some soap.  He was told that they currently did not have any, and that they wouldn't for two weeks.  My father suggested that if they were selling so much soap, perhaps they'd order more.  The storekeep smiled and said “Well actually, we never sell soap for the second half of the month.  Our records show that we only sell soap for the first two weeks and then none for the rest of the month.  So, we only buy for the first two weeks.”

I went to buy a microwave at the biggest Sony distributor in the country.  In the front of the store they had a very interesting microwave with some really advanced features.  I asked how much it was, and was told that I couldn't buy it, since they didn't have any.  When I pointed out to the salesperson that they did, in fact, have one, and it was right there, he said “That's our display unit.  If we sold that, we wouldn't be able to show it to other customers.”