Stupid Foreigners

One of the subtler challenges of being a stranger in a strange land is not only not being familiar with the customs, but not having sufficient language skills to challenge the assertions made to you — and not feeling comfortable arguing in English.

Last Friday I went to the Arkady Pankrac shopping center, about five metro stops away from me, to meet my friend Ales for a coffee and to discuss our start-up business. Although the mall is not particularly close to where I live, I took the opportunity to stop by the pet store in the mall and pick up something for Catalina — a furry "chair," of sorts, that hooks over the radiator, allowing her to sit somewhere especially warm and comfortable in these winter months. Three times I asked the clerk, "are you sure this'll work?" referring to my skepticism that the seat would hold her weight.

Three different times they insisted it would.

Not the actual chair, not the actual Catalina

So I bought it, brought it home, and, while I'm sure the seat would, in fact, have supported her, it turned out the metal hooks were designed for radiators a bit smaller than mine, and would not extend to encompass mine, so I couldn't set it up.

On Saturday I happened across the news on the Internet that the Pankrac metro stop would, on Monday, be closed for the entire year, so on Sunday I got up, walked the ten minutes to the metro, took the train to the shopping center, and entered the Pet Center shop to get a refund.

The woman behind the counter — who was not one of the two who had so enthusiastically encouraged me to buy the chair several days before — was happy to process the return, but said she couldn't give me a refund, only store credit. "But ... why?" I asked, surprised. I had brought the receipt, it was in the original bag, and it had only been two days since I bought the thing. Why wouldn't they simply give me a refund? "We don't do that," she said.

This is the "challenge" I referred to in the first paragraph. In America I could have fought. I could have asked to see the manager, or simply insisted. (Oh, sure, I probably wouldn't have — but I would have been conceivable). Here, in the Czech Republic, however, what do I know? What are the laws about returning purchased items, what are the customs? I certainly didn't want to cause a scene, only to force someone to argue with me in their second language!

Not such a big deal, of course. The damn thing only cost about $25 to begin with, so I exaggerated my sigh — a weapon I have often employed even though, in my lifetime, it has never achieved anything at all — and, emphasizing my aggrievement, I slumped over to the cat food aisle to buy $25 worth of cat food I would at some point need to buy for Catalina anyway. 

We weren't done, though. Back at the counter, there was a mysterious problem, as the now two clerks spoke among themselves in Czech before stammering that I would have to pay another 108 crowns. "I don't think so," I said, exaggerating my confusion for additional aggrievement points. "I did the math carefully, and it came out perfectly."

They insisted. I did the math again in my head, and this time honestly asked, "are you sure? It's probably my fault, but I think it's correct!"

It turned out that their English hadn't been quite good enough to convey to little-ol'-aggrieved David that, in fact, I still had another 108 crowns of credit, so I could get more stuff. (They weren't sure what to do because, of course, they couldn't give me a refund — was that really all I wanted to buy?). "Ah," I said, happy, and of course a bit embarrassed. I went and got some more food for Catalina — she's going to be very well fed for the next month or two — and walked out of the store.

Cultural problems, shopping problems, language problems, almost all of them my own fault. Sigh.