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February 17, 2005
Telemarketers!
From Michelle, Tortured in Rotterdam...
A little while ago some of you might remember that I developed a little plan to avoid all the streetmarketers in Rotterdam, because they somehow know on sight that I will be an easy target and will deliberately flock toward me (is there a large red arrow hovering mysteriously above my head?) So I cunningly added red danger dots to all streetmarketer danger areas on a map of the city center and found alternate routes. And guess what? It works.
Unfortunately, as I strongly suspected they would at some point soon, the telemarketers have now found me...
Is It Just Me, Or What?
So there I was earlier today, casually minding my own business, when the telephone in our apartment rang, so I picked up.
It was a very nice woman wanting to sell me a subscription to a newspaper because, she explained, it would really help me to improve my Dutch. Actually, not a bad idea...
A bit later, as I was casually minding my own business again, the phone rang again, so I picked up.
It was a very nice woman wanting me to change my expensive telephone service (she knew which company I'd signed with and quoted the Eurocents per minute at me) to her company's much cheaper, much much cheaper, telephone service. Um, that seemed like quite a good idea, too...
A bit later again, as I was casully minding my own business again, the phone rang again, so I picked up.
It was another nice woman wanting to sell me a subscription to a different newspaper, because (and I did explain about purchasing the subscription to the other newspaper) TWO newspapers meant TWICE as much help with my Dutch. How can you argue the logic of that?
Anyway, when the phone rang again a little while later, and it was another very nice woman wanting me to change my expensive telephone service to yet another cheaper telephone service, my head was spinning!
I needed a strategy...
A bit later, when the telephone rang again, my stress levels zoomed beyond the stratosphere.
"Hello," I barked down the phone in a really unfriendly manner, ready to be fierce and definitely not buy any more newspaper subscriptions.
It was, of course, my poor mother.
I need Caller ID. And voicemail. And as soon as I've gotten over the fact that I will have to call an 0900 number (10 EUROCENTS PER MINUTE) and spend at least five million Euros on the phone while I wait ten years and a gazillion ogenblicks for a real person to take away the piped music and talk to me, I will do it.
In the meantime, am strongly tempted to unplug the phone.
Michelle :-)
Posted by Michelle at 1:23 PM | Comments (2)
Comments
When we lived in Germany my high school German failed me completely and left me with enough German to buy stuff in the store (as long as there was a picture on the box and the numbers on the cash register) and stay in the house.
The day I arrived, jet lagged and disoriented, I got two visitors - one to inspect the apartment or something (I got flowers and chocolate from them while they looked at my baseboards or something) and another one to do something that escapes my memory right now.
Later, though, some guy came to the door, and I buzzed him in thinking he was some repairman or something. This was Potsdam, formerly EAST Germany, so few natives spoke English. This man talked really fast and never took a breath for about four paragraphs! He handed me a newspaper and went on to tell me, I'm assuming, why we should get this paper. I caught something about the best paper in the Potsdam area, but the rest was just me nodding with a dumb smile on my face, me glancing at the paper, and me waiting for him to take a breath so I could say in my halting German that we were Americans and didn't know enough German to actually need a newspaper.
When he paused and I said my bit, he looked at me a little puzzled and started his speech again. "This is the best newpaper..." Then his voice died off and he said, "You're Americans and don't speak much German?" I nodded. He thanked me, left the paper and left the building!
Nancy
Posted by: Nancy Brandt at February 17, 2005 3:44 PM
Nancy, that's too funny :-) Or I should say, "Dass ist zehr komisch!"
Michelle, so not fluent in German, LOL
Posted by: Michelle C at February 18, 2005 5:50 AM
