I had to go get a phone today. Which is the last thing I want. I left the iPhone at home on purpose. I hate that I am a slave to my phone, constantly looking at Facebook, checking my messages, reaching for my phone whenever there´s a dull moment. While I am here (and always, really) I want to be completely in the present. I want to break my dependence.
Either way, I needed at least some sort of phone to carry with me in case of an emergency. So today one of the girls I'm living with and I went to a phone store in the mall. We somehow didn't think this would be a difficult process.
It took awhile for the girl helping us to explain in a way we understood that the least expensive phones were only available postpaid, as in with a yearly plan or whatever. The ones we wanted were prepago, prepaid, which is with pay-as-you-go credit.
After we finally figured all that out, she wrote down a number and said, 'Este numero es para cancelar tus celulares.' (This number is used to cancel your phones.) So we said, oh, okay, so when we want to cancel our phones we should go to a store with our phones and give them this number? She gave us a blank stare. 'No. Es para cancelarlos.' (?????!!!!?!)
That conversation had repeated itself about ten times when a guardian angel stepped in. A guardian angel in the form of a white dude with a beard. 'Excuse me. Do you speak English?'
Relieeeeeef.
APPARENTLY, in Colombia cancelar does NOT mean cancel, it means to pay. In other words, she was using that number to pay for our phones in that moment at the register (weird but okay). I have no idea why she didn't just tell us it didn't matter what the number was.
I looked at my friend and we were thinking the same thing: I need a beer.
SEPT. 18
Either way, I needed at least some sort of phone to carry with me in case of an emergency. So today one of the girls I'm living with and I went to a phone store in the mall. We somehow didn't think this would be a difficult process.
It took awhile for the girl helping us to explain in a way we understood that the least expensive phones were only available postpaid, as in with a yearly plan or whatever. The ones we wanted were prepago, prepaid, which is with pay-as-you-go credit.
After we finally figured all that out, she wrote down a number and said, 'Este numero es para cancelar tus celulares.' (This number is used to cancel your phones.) So we said, oh, okay, so when we want to cancel our phones we should go to a store with our phones and give them this number? She gave us a blank stare. 'No. Es para cancelarlos.' (?????!!!!?!)
That conversation had repeated itself about ten times when a guardian angel stepped in. A guardian angel in the form of a white dude with a beard. 'Excuse me. Do you speak English?'
Relieeeeeef.
APPARENTLY, in Colombia cancelar does NOT mean cancel, it means to pay. In other words, she was using that number to pay for our phones in that moment at the register (weird but okay). I have no idea why she didn't just tell us it didn't matter what the number was.
I looked at my friend and we were thinking the same thing: I need a beer.
SEPT. 18
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