2004jun21. So I’m in Bangkok, right? In a 7-11. They have them there. But unlike your American 7-11s, 7-11s in Southeast Asia are brutually efficient, because some of them have people coming in and out every twenty seconds all day (hint: the ones near busy transit-oriented seaports). The store is small, there’s two aisles (which are small), the door opens automatically (this is pretty much every door in Southeast Asia, actually – two glass doors that slide away either by your touch or by sensing your stinky sweaty touristy body) there’s no place to even turn around. So I’m in the 7-11 with my mouth open (Choose one: “AHHHHHHHHHHHH” “UHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” “DUHHHHHHHHH”), trying to figure out which phone card I should buy, even though there’s only one. In other countries, there are many, many phone cards, but in Thailand, it seems like everything has a “locality.” For instance, my ATM card only worked with two out of eight different banks, but I could only find those ATMs in one certain section of Bangkok completely out of my way. And thus it is the same with the phone cards. There are several international phone cards, but only one type is available in a certain area of Bangkok, etc. So I am staring at my one option, and they have a Baht per minute chart taped down on the counter. To call the US it cost nine Baht/minute, and the card held 300 Baht (300 Baht ~= 7.50 USD), so I would be able to use the phone for thirty-three minutes, approximately (it didn’t quite work out this way, there was some sort of round-off scheme in effect, which I should have suspected). There’s another guy there, also looking at the phone card. He’s from London. His Baht/minute is a bit higher – thirty-three Baht per minute. So he gets nine minutes on a 300 Baht phone card. He notices I’m looking at the same chart, and he says “I actually only want to make a five-minute phone call. So if you’re already going to buy the card ... ” and I dovetailed in and said “ ... then we could split the cost of the card.” Here’s where it gets funny. All of that math I just ran you through, it’s going to put you in good stead for the following exchange.
Him: “But I only want to make a five-minute phone call. It’s not like I’m going to use the card and then run away.”He turns his head without saying a word, then slowly backs out of the 7-11. Beautiful. I asked him to do the impossible: put down 100 Baht for a call that would have cost him, if it was indeed a five-minute call to London, 165 Baht. I think he was one of those professional living-in-a-cheap-country types that occasionally scared me while abroad with their haggard drugged-out looks. “Man, I’m beating the system!” Uh-huh. But you’re not beating me.
Me (thinking “That’s exactly what you’re going to do”): “You’re going to need to put in at least 100 Baht.”
TUNE IN TOMORROW WHEN I SCAN SOME RANDOM TRIP PHOTOS AND MAKE INANE COMMENTS ABOUT THEM WHILE YOU CONTINUE TO PRETEND TO WORK ON THAT REPORT THING THAT’S DUE NEXT WEEK!