As you may know Jon has been teaching a course at the University nearby as well as continuing his Bangla language courses. It is now mid-term season so he has been especially busy with making and grading tests. On top of that, he has been having a hard time getting students to turn things in on time, do the assignments correctly, and dealing with the students making excuses for this or that and just being generally a kind of a pain. Over the last three days he had decided to meet with all of the students individually to get them all on track, so his days have been somewhat more busy and stressful than usual (a far cry from his normal days actually, which generally consist of lounging about until bedtime). Today while he was meeting with a student , he heard rain and thunder start and made an off-hand comment about how it was just in time for the trek home, and thought to himself that it was a perfectly fitting way to top of a kind of crappy day.
So, as he stepped out of the door to leave, it was raining much worse than he had expected. The road in front of the university was basically a river. He definitely didn’t want to walk home in the downpour and flooded streets so he searched for a rickshaw. There only seemed to be one guy that was working nearby and he was a pretty old dude, probably pushing 110 years old or so. The rest of the rickshaw wallahs around were all taking refuge under their covers, but this old guy had tied a trash bag around his head and waist and was ready to roll. He apparently also saw this as a perfect opportunity to price gouge Jon since the streets were so flooded.
So Jon asks the rickshaw wallah if he would go to his neighborhood. The rickshaw wallah says yes, so Jon gets on the rickshaw. We don’t usually negotiate a price ahead of time (like some people do) and instead we just usually pay them a little above the average fare when we get where we are going. This guy decided to bargain beforehand though. He holds up a single finger and Jon says ‘ 1 Taka? ok, sounds great.’ The guy, un-amused ,says eksho (100). Jon says no way (that is well over twice the usual fare) and tries bring him down by half. Meanwhile, as he is bargaining, Jon quietly begins to wonder what kind of money he actually has on him. As the two continue to negotiate, Jon checks his wallet and realizes that he only has two 10 Taka notes or a 1000 taka note (rickshaw wallahs never have that much change, and many places refuse to give change here). As the two are haggling over the price and Jon is realizing that this may end up being the most expensive ride he has ever taken, a car is waiting to pull out and continuously honking. The rickshaw wallah wants to go and get his fare, the car wants to pull out , but Jon is worried he doesn’t have the right money for the trip, so Jon says “hold on, hold on, let me call my wife” because he thought well if Sam has some taka he could get some from her when he got home – no luck she doesn’t answer the phone. Finally, Jon agrees to 100 taka since the guy was really old and funny and kept indicating that it was raining and water was up to his thigh. ‘Ok, but I need to stop by the market first’ Jon says, so that he could buy something to get some change.
So Jon and the rickshaw wallah set off riding down the flooded streets, which weren’t quite up to his thigh, but at points may have been up to his knee (though he was a short guy). While on the rickshaw Jon tries calling Sam again hoping to avoid going to the store that is notoriously stingy with their change – still no answer. Jon tells the rickshaw driver to stop at the store and tells him he will be back in five minutes. So Jon rushes into the store as quickly as possible because if it took too long he knew the rickshaw wallah would raise the fare. He goes in knowing he only has a 1000 Taka note so he needed to buy expensive things otherwise the teller may not have the change. “Expensive things, expensive things, what are some expensive things that we need at the house?” Jon thought. At this point Jon is rushing through the aisles in a panic looking for the most expensive things in the store, basically. Some soda? That’s kind of expensive. OK, he grabs a few of those. Then he sees it -- Froot Loops™ -- perfect! These are a new import item and Atticus hasn’t had any good sugary sweet cereal for almost a year. In fact, just earlier in the week we had all been in the store and Atticus was drooling over the new import cereals available now, but we were appalled at the price. So Jon grabs the cereal and sodas and checks out. Total: 752 taka, great for change.
Finally, Jon gets home, and gives the guy his inflated fare and yet still throws in a few taka because he liked the guy, and then unbelievably the guy asks for a soda! Jon says no, they’re for my wife (always a good excuse) and the guys says, “oh, ok” and smiles and goes on his way. As Jon was walking up the stairs to his apartment he realized the absurdity of what had just happened. He had just paid nearly ten dollars for an imported box of cereal from some huge US corporation so he could avoid “overpaying” some poor, old rickshaw driver that was hauling his ass around in the rain. Really, where would the money have been better spent? (You don’t have to answer that since the clear answer is supporting the glorious bastion of capitalism, Kellogs ™). The even worse part for Jon, of course, was explaining to Sam why he had just walked in with a ten dollar box of cereal.
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