When I was coming through Vancouver and staying with/visiting some of my absolute favourite people (JLG, DMcV, and Chenders!), I finally indulged my impulse to get a cheap, pay-as-you-go phone. I tried a couple of 7-Elevens around downtown after I had lunch with JLG, but was having trouble. They had phones, but I was looking for the bottom of the barrel, cheap as can be, sort of phone. Luckily, a Fido place was nearby, so I strolled in. (I think I'm bordering on punctuation abuse right now with all the commas.)
I approached the counter and explaining my predicament with my currently useless Chinese phone, the delightful girl behind the counter got me sorted out with a cheap Nokia that was within my admittedly brutal price range. After sorting out a few of the details, she asked me if I spoke Chinese. As I do with most people who ask the question, I responded in Chinese saying "I don't speak well". I thought it was kinda appropriate, considering both the customer next to me and the other customer service person there were both speaking Mandarin. The girl helping me was also Asian, and just thought I'd throw it out there...
"Do you speak [Mandarin]?"
Her response was polite and simple: "Ummm... no. I'm Japanese."
Crap.
Well, I tried my best to take my foot out of my mouth and place it in some sort of sturdy fashion back on the ground. This was a pretty mortifying moment, since I consider myself particularly PC. Oh well... no harm, no foul, right? And I think I learned a lesson, so I guess we can chalk that one up to the positive.
I hope you all enjoyed indulging in my foot-in-mouth disease that seems to be all too common. For now, though, I'm in the land of the non-PC: Montana. Soaking up the sun, golfing like a total hack, and getting some spanking good deals on some clothes is the name of the game for now. More to come when I pursue some more alone time. For now, wuda pengyous... ciao.
I hope you all enjoyed indulging in my foot-in-mouth disease that seems to be all too common. For now, though, I'm in the land of the non-PC: Montana. Soaking up the sun, golfing like a total hack, and getting some spanking good deals on some clothes is the name of the game for now. More to come when I pursue some more alone time. For now, wuda pengyous... ciao.
T
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