
It almost make no sense, but it's hilarious.
So here's my surreal life story of the afternoon. I befriend some 73-year-old Punjabi guy I meet in a Costa Coffee bar around downtown Delhi. I take him along to help me negotiate, local-style, to haggle for a rug I wanted to buy (for the house, they're not so good for ones on your head). He's even telling the owner, who he's friends with, "He's my son!!" while putting his arm around me and he tells the owner how he's insulted by the price they're haggling. Whatever. Turns out it's a pretty expensive deal.
Anyway, my credit card company flags it as a suspicious purpose and leaves a voice message at my home to call to "verify a few things". So my wife e-mails me. So they give me a collect call number back in the U.S. Problem is, they don't support collect calling within India. The credit card bank is too myopic to know this. So I'm stuck, since calling the number directly from India on Skype gets the automated message, "Please call this number back collect." Click.
So I fortunately found a way to Skype into the U.S.-based 800 number for the credit card company, which you cannot reach from India (as with all 800 numbers). So who answers the phone at the credit company? "Hi, my name is Steve, how may I help you?" ...
in a Bengali accent.
Motherfucker! The guy answering the phone is down the road from me. :wth: I had to jump through all these telecommunication hoops around the globe to talk to a guy who watches the latest Bollywood releases at the mall by my hotel.
Btw, my latest favorite TV network and Web site:
http://www.b4utv.com/
Filmi. Very filmi.