Quick lesson

The Spanish word "ferretería" means hardware store. From the Latin root, ferrum, meaning iron and employing the Spanish ending "ía" which generally denotes emporia of various types.

Our small town has a couple of ferreterías; a larger one with its own lumberyard, paint center and (new this year) nursery; and a smaller mom & pop one where the stuff is usually dusty when you get it, and which would probably be about the size of a two-car garage if you emptied out all the shelves and stuff. I like them both, in different ways.

The larger one, El Rafaeleño, has custom made cash register tape with the tw0-color logo printed in the background and the computerized code/description/quantity itemization of your every purchase.

The mom & pop place, Ferretería San Rafael, has inch-and-a-half-wide register tape with the dot-matrix printout that pretty much tells you the date and the total amount you paid, as well a the store's name and ID number and stuff required by law.

All this by way of noting that the first line of the wee little register tape reads "Ferret San Rafael."