The Turkish Sales Pitch and John's Other Weaknesses

It’s Friday night here, and I’m sitting on the train to Vienna with nothing to do at the moment. I finished my German course today, thank God, and I’ve got about two weeks before the summer semester begins. As such, I’m taking a trip (which started out as a weekend, turned into a week, and is now a 10 day adventure; my pants are getting wet as my parents’ credit card melts) with three friends to Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest. More on that after the trip’s over; here’s the skinny on the last few days:
Yesterday, I was in my room about to take a shower as I had just gotten back from jogging (or yogging, the “j” might be soft, I’m not certain), when there’s a knock on the door. I open the door to see a short Turkish man standing there; he quickly tells me that he wants to sign me to a different power company.
Let me press the pause button on this story and clarify something before continuing: In Europe, or at least Germany (readers of my blog will know without a doubt that there’s nothing I hate worse than making low and petty generalizations about large groups of people, of course), everything is made as inconvenient as it can possibly be made. Therefore, although I live in a dorm, I have to seek out my power and internet service or else I will have none. This is going on a bit of a tangent, but it gets worse; although there’s only one university that I attend, there are as many different offices to pay as there are different fees that I owe, meaning that I have to go to all of these places to pay. No website, credit cards never accepted, pay the bill, or go home; this is the attitude of these people. Furthermore, not only is the payment expected on time and in person, each payment has its own set of paperwork that must be shown at the time of payment, or the payment cannot be accepted. And, no, the required set of papers is not the same for every different fee; to be prepared, I now carry my passport, insurance card (which is provided by an American company), proof of refusal of German insurance (a paper I was forced to sign the first day; I don’t understand why I can’t just tell each office that I didn’t/ don’t want German insurance), proof of German bank account (being both my bank card and the paper I signed to open the account), proof of student registration (which is more than just a card), and a host of other bureaucratic nonsense everywhere I go. Ugh- Europe’s a great place to visit, but I completely understand why those dudes got on the Mayflower.
Anyway, back to the previously interrupted story: Being less than fully adept at German, I hesitate with the correct way to politely refuse the eager salesman as he is standing at my door, and he’s in my room before I know it. He explains to me that his power company will sell me power at 9 cents less per hour than my current service, and they provide environmentally friendly power exclusively. Somehow, he already has the numbers on how much power I’ve used this month (I’m 90% sure he was making these up on the spot, but I gotta hand it to the guy, this is a pretty slick move), and he shows me just how much money I would have saved with his company. Whether or not my power usage numbers were accurate, the fact remains that I’ll save money with this guy. I was still skeptical, until he pulled out a powerpoint presentation (IN A DORM ROOM) and used a laser pointer (when it was on a computer screen; seriously, a finger would have sufficed) to go through it with me. I had to indulge him; when somebody’s a true, legitimate schtick, you’ve really got no choice. True schtick is a rarity, ladies and gentlemen. At the end of this, I agree; he’ll save me some money, and I couldn’t turn down a pitch like that. Just after signing though, (not that I regret my decision, this is just funny) he reassures me that I’ve made the right choice by saying, “Trust me, I’m a Turk; I’m not like all these other Germans, just out to screw you.” Yeah, broseph, the Turks are known from Tokyo to Trinidad as being a trustworthy people; being a nation known for terrorizing Eastern Europe with seemingly random fits of invasion, not to mention being the origin of phrases like “thievin’ A-Rab,” I do trust a Turkish stranger to fix me up with a good deal on power. On his way out, he asks me if I’m his friend (not a joke), to which I have to politely respond, “Sure, why not?” He makes sure to give me his cell phone number (his reason being completely non-business related; “call me if you ever want to go to a REAL party”) and asks me for my American cell number in return, in case he “ever makes the trip.” Ok, I have to confess something here: I didn’t give him my real cell phone number. If I’d known Ben Hatch’s off the top of my head, Hatch would be getting a call from the Turkish power salesman (I think his name’s Sazuel), but, alas, I did not. Sorry, Hatch. The number I did give him? Call me homely, but the first number that came to my head was my mother’s; in any event, she’s the sort of person that would hang up on a stranger asking for her son with an exotic accent. God bless that woman. Anyway, after about another 10 minute conversation about Obama (which I’m trying to wrap up the entire time; some people can’t take a hint…across a language barrier), Sazuel (if that’s his name- I have it on a business card, but I hope to never have to call this person, despite my respect for his obvious sales prowess) finally leaves, but not before again assuring my of his trustworthy Turkish roots. Some people are just blind to racism and stereotypes, I guess.
Anyway, I guess that wasn’t really the skinny on my entire week, but I’ll get back to it later. I’m almost to Vienna, and my trip awaits. Important note, please read: I have several Turkish friends here, and all’s good with them. They’re great people. I’m merely noting the entire world’s vast generalization of the country and its inhabitants. I’m sure it’s a beautiful, rich culture with many upstanding and honest individuals; it’s just a few really dirty, smelly A’Rabs pulling the whole country down. And let’s be honest, Constantinople was a waaaay better name before they came along.
…kidding…