Excerpt: Shopping Abroad

I'm kind of an ass when it comes to certain things and I've come to grips with that over the years. At least I can admit it, which - in any case - is easier than changing it. My wife has also somewhat come to understand that she cannot change this personality flaw; granted it's taken her more than 11-years to realize it.

One of the areas where I have a difficult time is in dealing with competitive situations. Like shopping. Of course, like most American males, I can pretty much find competition in anything that I do, but shopping - particularly shopping abroad where everything is bargained for - leads me to a place where the overwhelming forces of competition tend to take control and all of the excitement and adrenalin that go into winning course through my veins and lead me to a frenzied state of being from which there is no return without ultimate success. Unfortunately for many of the must-have-money vendors with whom I've dealt, I'm pretty good at this game.

When in Morocco several years back, my wife and I did a foot-tour of the city, ducking in and out of the shops and wheeling and dealing with street vendors selling everything from food to clothing, jewelry to snake charming. My poor wife simply wanted to experience the culture and I, of course, turned it into a game of pricing limbo ... "how low can they go". One poor kid, (and I use the term as sympathy for the situation, not in reference to the fact that he was obviously "poor" in a financial sense as well), came to me with some African hats. You know the kind; they look like a small red bucket with a graduation tassel hanging from them. Reminded me of something that a monkey would wear working a street corner with a guy playing a wind-up box. Anyway, I'm sure these hats have a proper name but I don't know what it is nor did I care at the time. I had no interest in the hats, but for the persistence of the vendor selling them, I suddenly felt the urge for a "game on" situation.

He had obviously seen me coming from a long way off. I was definitely the only 6-foot, seven-inch white guy on the street and lumbering down hill in his direction after a long day of bargaining abroad. My wife had pretty much had it with my antics and was walking quickly past the vendors only wanting to return to the cruise ship and get away from the stresses of shopping with me. As we approached, the vendor shoved a stack of the red hats toward me, hoping to get my attention. I raised a hand indicating that I wasn't interested, but he apparently saw me as a meal ticket of sorts and decided to persist. Careful what you wish for, young man ... you may just get your wish.

The poor kid was hungry for a sale and obviously saw me as an American right off as he spoke in very broken English, "Hat for you. Best money." I still remember the phrase well as his voice reminded me of the guy who played Tonto in the old Lone Ranger series. It was as though I were riding past on Silver and the adrenaline of promised competition was spit into my bloodstream. Best money indeed. We'll see about that, I thought. Never mind the fact that I had absolutely no use for the dumb hat!

My wife pulled my arm as I stopped and looked at the stack of hats in the young man's hand. "How much?" I asked. Immediately I could feel the dagger of a cold stare burrowing into my heart, but I countered by not looking in my wife's direction. Sometimes avoidance is the best mode of dealing with spousal abuse.

"Twenty dollars, American", came the vendor's reply.

"Twenty dollars? Are you on drugs?" He looked at me with confusion - my tone indicating that I was not going to pay the price - but the words apparently meaning nothing to him.

"Best money", he said. "You give?"

"Not interested", I said feeling my wife's shoulders drop in a sigh of relief without even looking her way. I began to take a step when the hats literally hit me in the chest.

"Best money." He repeated. It was like a challenging call to battle from another warrior.

"I'll give you a dollar", I said, not wanting a hat, but thinking that I'd give it to my nephew as a souvenir. The vendor turned and walked away. There's a first, I thought. Normally in a bargaining situation I'm the one to walk away. This guy just stole my line. I was a little upset by that, but thought that my marriage might be more important than a hat I didn't want and therefore I turned to follow my wife who was already several steps ahead.

I made it another twenty feet or so when the vendor came running back to me.

"Ten dollars, American", he said. Ah, now we're getting somewhere. The art of communication is amazing, as money tends to cross multi-lingual boundaries quite easily. Bound by my devotion to good bargaining tactics, I kept walking.

"Five dollars! American!" the vendor screamed at me from behind, the desperation in his voice was sickening. I stopped and turned, my wife pulling my wrist out of socket in the process. Fortunately for me, I'm much larger than she is and therefore her firm grip only succeeded in stopping her forward progress, instead of pulling me from my footing.

"Two."

"Five."

I wasted no time in turning and allowing my wife to force me back into the direction of the pier. She was still pulling hard on my wrist, her face contorted in a concentrated effort as though she were giving birth to a small pachyderm. I thought of a child trying to pull a heavy wagon and chuckled softly. The response was not well-received as she pulled harder.

We rounded a corner and continued on without distraction and I could now see the ship ahead tied to its moorings. Not far now, I thought, still somewhat miffed that I didn't get the dumb hat for my price. After all, that had been a pretty good deal considering the minimal effort that I had put into the bargain ... $20 to $5 was impressive. It could have been another notch in my ego's belt to brag on later.

As we drew closer to the docking area at the pier, I suddenly heard the sounds of fast-falling footsteps closing from behind. My immediate reaction was to reach around and make sure that my wallet was in my front pocket. As my hand patted my butt, a stack of red hats forcefully slammed me in the chest from the opposite side taking me by surprise and somewhat knocking the wind out of me.

"THREE DOLLARS! AMERICAN!" The vendor yelled at me in an upset tone - loud enough, in fact - that everyone standing within a twenty-foot circle stopped to look up at the commotion. Apparently this guy was pissed at me and for the moment, I wondered if I wasn't about to be stabbed. Looking him in the eye, however, I could tell that he was simply hungry and needed money for whatever reason. He had finally given up on getting what he wanted for the hats and decided that something was better than nothing. I assumed that the goods must have been stolen since he went so low, but at that point, I just figured that the guy was pretty desperate and three bucks wasn't outrageous for an authentic African hat.

Instead of pulling my wallet from my front pocket, I grabbed a loose wad of ones that I had placed separately in the pocket on the other side. I peeled off three and handed them to him only to have them snatched from my hand. He dropped the stack of hats, which I caught just before they hit the ground, and the vendor ran back up the street from where he had come. I stood there frozen, slightly slouched over and holding the entire stack of 5 African hats in my left hand with which I had caught them.

Glancing at my wife and without missing a beat, I said, "See there. 60-cents a piece ... best deal of the day and you were ready to pass it up!" Judging from her reluctance to talk to me, I’m assuming she didn’t approve. I felt bad for a time afterward thinking that perhaps I had taken the man’s only income for the day and left him short. Maybe he couldn’t afford to feed his family after falling victim to my bargaining super powers and perhaps his children went hungry that night. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that had he simply paid attention to me, he would have noticed that I was only bargaining for a single hat. After all, it should have been obvious. How many people really want to purchase five African hats at a time? I’ll never know the answer. Besides, I didn’t force him to sell them to me. In reality, I tried to walk away.

By the way, the hats are stored in my garage to this day.

All the best,

WDL

This piece is a partial chapter excerpt from my forthcoming book, which will be released later this summer. Please watch my blog for ordering and release information!