Junction  for Sale!

Bulgarians are famous the world over for their enterprising spirit. With the advent of democracy, they flooded the Serbian market with meat mincers, inundated Macedonia with gasoline and canned sardines, invaded Greece with porcelain dinnerware and bed sheets, and marched on Turkey armed with cartons of cigarettes and cages of singing canaries…

After overrunning the Balkan Peninsula, after emptying the country’s kiosks and government stores, Bulgarian entrepreneurs sought new markets to conquer. Naturally, they cast their eyes and their nets to the west. Bulgarian trade reached such proportions that I was not in the least surprised when a Bulgarian who had attached himself to me like a sticky thistle confided that one of our fellow countrymen wanted to sell him a junction. The English were at a loss to explain how Bulgarians could be selling not just their junctions, but even their houses…

The enterprising Bulgarian in question had planted himself at one of the major thoroughfares leading into London with a few bunches of roses, which he offered to passing motorists when the light turned red. The drivers – gentlemen generally in a hurry and often too tired to shop – decided to surprise their better halves and availed themselves of this new service.

After a few successful forays, our intrepid salesman saw that there was real money to be made. So he expanded and diversified. Soon there were signs at many of the traffic lights: ten roses for the price of three pounds sterling, twenty roses for five pounds. His sales force would arrive with their bouquets in the afternoon and sell out before the sun set. With thousands of passing motorists, it was child’s play to dispose of twenty to thirty buckets’ worth a day.

They bought the roses wholesale for next to nothing. Each morning they would prepare their buckets, and each afternoon they would hawk them. Other Bulgarians soon took note of the success, many of whom were living hand to mouth. So the florid genius who had initiated the scheme became a celebrated businessman who was now managing a stable of rose sellers at London’s busy intersections. His trade increased so much that he had to invest in a minivan to ferry his crew to their locations and deliver watering cans for the roses.

In the evening he would make the rounds again – to pick up the bunches and watering cans and to collect his cut of the proceeds, which generally amounted to a pound sterling per bunch of roses.

All well and good… but one junction isn’t equal to another. On a given day, one location could sell fifty bouquets while another could only manage five. So he began to rotate his sales crew – each day a different spot. But another problem arose. Some days were also better than others. Roses sold like hotcakes on Fridays, but on a Tuesday sellers could only manage a fraction of a Friday’s take.

So he came up with the idea of selling junctions. You paid him a certain amount, and a particular junction was yours in perpetuity. The brisker the business at a junction, the more you would have to pay to set up shop there. Pay whom? Why the guy who came up with the bright idea in the first place, of course, Mister Ivan on the spot.

Ukrainians and Macedonians tried to horn in by selling roses at junctions without paying our man. But as soon as they showed up, a „welcoming committee” would also appear to run them off. You could buy a junction, but you couldn’t simply occupy one.

But what’s sauce for the goose is glaze for the gander. From the first, the police sought to run off all the rose peddlers, insisting that the practice posed a danger to passing motorists and even more of a danger to the hawkers wending their merry way in and out of passing cars. „You can’t run me off this junction!” an indignant seller would proclaim to the Bobbies. „I paid for it!”

The poor English were simply befuddled, particularly when it came to their attention that not only was Bulgarians selling their junctions, they were also selling their houses. Pick up any one of the three Bulgarian-language newspapers published in London at present and you will find advertisements like these: „House in need of cleaning for sale in northeast London. Telephone 07979… Ask for Elena.” Or: „Looking to buy houses and offices for cleaning. Telephone 07799… Ask for Maria”.  „ Willing to purchase work – houses to clean, children to mind, and so forth and so on. Telephone this number…”        .   So the Bulgarians were even buying and selling children! These people certainly do wheel and deal! Look – our houses for sale, and whatever else – you name it!

A Bulgarian maid would get in over her head, agree to do more work than she could handle, and Eureka! She’d simply sell the rights to whatever she couldn’t do herself.  The owners of the homes would just assume that they had a new maid and ask no questions. They had no idea that their house had been bought and sold…

Ah, the inventiveness and ingenuity of Bulgarians living abroad. It knows no bounds!

        PAMELA

Halifax is a popular bank in England and I have been a  long term client there. I will share two stories which took place in one of its branches, but I would like to beg you in advance not to blame me for any kind of racism!

Last year in January I have debited three hundred pounds in the City branch of this bank. I have been served by a black guy, about thirty years old. He was smiling while thanking me in the ordinary way and at the end returned me a small receipt-document. Coming home in an hour, I noticed the absence of my debit card. Yeah! The black man didn’t return it to me, it remained with him in the bank. “No worries” I said to myself. ”It is important that I haven’t lost it and nobody has stolen it.” I went right back, but at the counter was another person. I started looking around for the young black man, but he wasn’t there. He had been authorized with a permission to leave earlier I understood.  Nevertheless I continued searching for my card – the same story, also gone. I have been advised to block it immediately.

I started ringing on the specified telephone number. The last recorded transaction was three hundred pounds debited. I calmed down. Everything was fine, the validity of the card has been stopped and after two or three days I will get a new one.

Later on I received the monthly January statement. No problems at all with the money. February passed, March came and went, as well. Suddenly in early April I received a statement in which I was surprised to find out that among the transactions in March there were four inserted in, dated 17^th January.  Their total amount was approximately six hundred pounds. I rushed myself towards the bank. They were also quite astonished how this could happen. The audit showed that 17^th January is the same day I have blocked the forgotten card. Obviously this could only be performed by authorised body of the bank. However, we filled out a form for scrutiny and an application for the money return.

I started ringing in their central office, informed the police, as well. The Bank insisted on its image and within a month recovered the missing amount. Probably they have found that these payments had not been accomplished by me.

Recently, one Wednesday I debited eight hundred pounds in the same branch of Halifax. As usual the cassier asked me how much is the amount. I stated it, she smiled and began to count the money. Each five twenty-pounds bills have been folded up, i.e. she stowed the fifth one and poked the other four in. Five hundred pounds were in denominations of twenty and three hundred others – denomination of ten. She returned my card along with the receipt and I  stick them casually into my pocket .

Just on Friday night I accidentally had a look at the note and found out it’s written down three hundred pounds. How did it happen to be three hundred, as I depozed eight hundred!?

– Was she a black woman? – asked me at home.

– No, she wasn’t a black one, but  was with black eyes and hair, something like Spanish or Portugese type of appearance…

– You are blown out, man. There is no evidence that you have submitted eight hundred.  I saw on TV once how an old man submitted two thousand, and received a receipt for two hundred. Your bank lady deliberately did it in order to harvest five hundred pounds.

And the next working day was right on Monday! Much time to consider various options. I was wondering how could I prove that the officiant  has put five hundred pounds in her pocket by stealing them from me. And why did I go in the Bank after a few days, without any immediate check?

I canceled all my arrangements for Monday morning except to be there at nine am – just before opening the bank.

So I enter with eyes glazing at the counter number four. However, another young man was sitting there. My question didn’t concern cashiers and I started looking for the Manager.

– How can I help you? –  asked me the woman behind the desk.

I began to explain how on Wednesday I gave eight hundred pounds at the counter number four , but the woman who was on duty there, has given to me a receipt only for three hundred. The lips and the face of the bank clerk shined in an extraordinary smile.

– The cashier that  was  there, wasn‘t it me? – she surprised me with this question.

– Well … yes! – I misplaced my answer. – Was there any error occurred?

– Ah, you don’t know how much you helped me with your arrival! On Thursday and Friday the only issue I did was to investigate how it happened to have five hundred pounds extra money. Thank you very much,  although belatedly you came! …

She introduced me into a room, while sorting out the problem. The camera from the angle were monitoring and recording everything. I asked her:

– Are you English?

– Yes. Nice to meet you! My name is Pamela Wicks, briefly Pam. Where are you from, then?

– I am from Bulgaria and I have already published a story about a similar incident with a English woman. If it was a employee from other nationality probably I would not get my money back.

And I told her my previous story – with those six hundred pounds stolen last year.

Pamela looked at the all-seeing cameras with hardly concealed fear and somehow managed to convince me in her statement.

– Well … There are rare situations when extra money remains.  More frequently some cashiers have lack of amounts at the end … Once again I want to express my immense gratitude that you came back and I had the chance to return you the extra remained by fault amount!

When I left I just succeeded to realize that in fact not she, but I had to thank from all my heart!

January 2007, London

       P.S. Three years later I searched for Pamela in the Bank and presented her this story, together with some Bulgarian souvenirs. She remembered the accident and with the very same smile long time admired my personality. Because the far away East living Bulgarians are so noble grateful people!

ON THE STATUS OF PUMPKIN AND OTHER SUCH MATTERS

OR WHY I’M IN LONDON

First grade. A lesson on fruits and vegetables. Some are considered desserts, others to be cooked. The teacher keeps adding to the list, separating them into the two diff erent groups. Then it dawns on me that I don’t know where the pumpkin fits into the picture. So I raise my hand and ask, “But, teacher, is pumpkin a fruit or a vegetable?”

“But teacher, is pumpkin a fruit or a vegetable?”

“Hmm. What do you think?

“Well… unless you cook it, you can’t serve it for dessert. So… I don’t know.”

“I’ll tell you where pumpkin belongs next time,” the teacher answers, obviously unsure herself about the status of pumpkin.

And so I learned an early lesson about teaching – if teachers don’t know the answer to something, they think it best thing to put it off until next time, rather than suffer embarrassment by giving a wrong answer.

And so the next lesson came, but either the teacher still didn’t have an answer or she had forgotten to check on the matter. Or maybe she just thought that that the question was already long gone and forgotten. But that’s not what I thought. I surprised her by asking again.

Her placid face became a study in vexation. One of her students had presumed to put her in an awkward position, twice. He had asked her a question she couldn’t answer.

“Well, it just isn’t important. Pumpkin can be a fruit and it can also be a vegetable.” That was her final answer.

Understandably, I wasn’t exactly overjoyed with that answer.

After that incident, her attitude toward me changed. She grimaced when I raised my hand, she did what she could to silence me, and she hindered the progress of my education.

Some years later, when I was travelling by train with some of my young friends, an older travelling companion entertained us by giving us some clever and complicated problems to solve. It may sound like boasting, but I was able to solve most of them. Eventually, the older companion ventured a prediction about my future.

“You won’t have it easy, my young friend! Bulgarians aren’t fond of people who seem to know all the answers. Envy and spite will hound you wherever you go. Your only alternative is to leave the country.”

This prediction struck me as merely strange and troubling, and I didn’t set much store by it at the time. But the man turned out to be as insightful as a disciple of Nostradamus. All too often I have struggled beneath the heavy weight of others’ envy. So although it took me quite a while, I finally followed the man’s advice and left Bulgaria, for London!

THE ENGLISHWOMAN

Some of the pubs in northeast London are managed by enterprising Bulgarians, and they serve as a watering hole for other Bulgarians living in the capital. Those lately arrived hope to glean information about the best employment opportunities or the cheapest apartments, and the old-timers dream up ways to lure the newcomers into traps and intrigues. A typical Bulgarian establishment…

“Hey, these Brits are incredible! You have no way to know what they’ll do next!” my loquacious companion confided, then launched into his proof tale, to do with a mobile phone.

I lost my mobile phone. I assumed somebody stole it on a bus or in a crowd on the street. ‘God gives, God takes away’, as people say. Except that I didn’t get the phone from God, I took it without His help.

It happened like this: I was selling roses at a junction. A bucket of ten roses – three pounds, twenty roses – five pounds. An elderly lady stopped to buy a bucket of roses, and while she was rummaging for the money to pay for them she set her mobile phone on a brick ledge. Then she walked off and left the phone there. I immediately turned it off and shoved it into my bag.

A half hour later the lady came back, looking for the phone. She showed me exactly where she had set it down.

“I didn’t see anything,” I told her. “Don’t you see how many people there are here?”

“I’m so sorry to have troubled you. I’ll just pop round and ask at the Lost and Found Bureau,” she added. The woman was obviously a total idiot. “Again, so sorry to have disturbed you.”

When I got back home I decided to turn the phone on. After some time the lady rang her own number.

“Please excuse for troubling you, but the phone on which you are speaking with me is mine. Earlier today I left it on a ledge on the street…”

“I don’t know anything about that, Madame! I just bought this phone from an African…”

And I hung up on her. Then I began to think about it. Given today’s technology, they might find me and accuse me of stealing the phone – then deport me to Bulgaria straightaway. So I changed the SIM card and got a new phone number! That way I could use it without any worries – nobody would know the phone had been somebody else’s.

So that’s the story of my mobile phone. And now, after using it for quite a good while, it disappears. Since I didn’t buy it, God took it away from me. God sees the truth, but waits… What point would there be in informing the police, or looking for it at the Lost and Found Bureau like that crackpot old lady who owned it before me?

Crackpot, whack pot… finally I did just exactly she did. I called my own number.

“Yes?” A woman’s voice, overflowing with courtesy. “With whom do you wish to speak? How might I help you?”

“The phone on which you are speaking with me is mine. Even if you bought it second hand, I’ve been looking for it…”

“I’m so happy that I found its owner so quickly. I was just thinking of dropping it at the Lost and Found Bureau. You left it on the seat on a bus. As you were getting off I called to you, but evidently you didn’t hear me. I tried to catch up with you to return it to you, but I lost track of you in the crowd…”

“Aha, and… will you give it to me now?”

“Just tell me where you would like to meet and I will be happy to return it. I live in a suburb south of London, between Richmond and Wimbledon.”

“Ohh, that’s a long way from where I live! I’ll have to travel two hours to reach you. Can’t you bring it me somewhere in the city centre?

“Don’t trouble yourself! Just give me your address and I’ll be happy to mail it to you. You’ll have it tomorrow.”

I gave her my address. Then I called my number again, to see if she had already turned the phone off and changed the SIM card. But the woman answered and reassured me.

“Don’t worry, I won’t make any calls on your phone. I’m going to pack it up and take it to the post office right now.”

That’s just what she did. The phone that I lost yesterday arrived today, special delivery. The woman had spent her own money to send the phone to me.

I tried it. It was undamaged. And it still had all the credit that I had paid for. Not a single call! Amazing! And she included a note. I could see that she had really given it some thought.

“Dear owner of the mobile phone that I found, I am so happy that you contacted me and that I had the pleasure of returning it. I am an Englishwoman, and I must admit I can’t understand these foreigners. Last year I owned a phone identical to yours. While I was buying roses at an intersection, I left my phone on a ledge. I went back to the spot a half hour later to look for it, but the man selling the flowers said he hadn’t seen it. I was only able to reach my number once and whoever had it said that some black man had sold it to him. After that I couldn’t reach the number again. Obviously whoever had it changed the number… I had no luck at the Lost and Found Bureau either. Most likely the man selling roses took it. I was discussing the matter some time later, and was informed that those sales people are usually foreigners, Easteuropeans and most likely that they don’t return the things they find.

That is why I picked up your phone on the bus. I only wanted to make sure it didn’t end up in the hands in one of those foreigners, so that you would be sure to get it back!”

I can’t tell you how many times I read that letter over! I would wake up after midnight to read it, and I could never get back to sleep. How did I end up just another face in a crowd of unsavoury Bulgarians! I’m going to pack up the phone and send it back to her. I still have her SIM card. I’ll give a false address, of course, so she can’t find me.

“God really is just, isn’t He?” murmured my chastened companion, and then sank into a lengthy silence…

Geographic Tongue

My metal-ceramic bridge came unstuck in my mouth. And it had to happen just at the climax of the party celebrating Bulgarian talent in London, organized by the famous Plovdiv radio and TV presenter Steffi Stamenova. And  just when at the massed tables in the Bulgarian pub “Kamina (The Nook)”, Krassi Yordanov the poet with a guitar poured out music from Visotski  and the legendary performer from the Zamunda Banana Band Zhoro Peev called for a toast.

What bloody luck! I left the party prematurely, followed by the astonished stares of those present and the next morning found me at the nearby Guy’s Hospital. As a teaching base of the Dental faculty this is where trainees and practitioners carry out all kinds of emergency procedures.

After the routine questions and form-filling concerning my state of health and that of my family back to grandparents, the trainee dentist Zara began a thorough examination of my teeth and interior of my mouth. Rather surprised she made me stick out my tongue keeping it out moving it from left to right. And she was asking me non-stop: “Does it hurt here?  Does it hurt there?”

“Good grief, nothing’s hurting me, I came so you could glue back my bridge. You haven’t found some cancer symptoms?” I asked in my turn.

“No no, just our medical questions…”

And she called her supervisor over.

Coming over to me he muttered something like geographical and gathered all the trainees who were stationed in the ten or so cubicles.

“O-o-h you’re talking about my geographic tongue?”  I realized at last.

“Yes, but you mean to say you know about this, how do you know about it?”

“Of course I know about it. I was about ten years old, at a check up when the dentist explained it to me.”

“Hang on, hang on! Where do you come from?”

“From Bulgaria.  It’s been in the EU several years now.

“My my! Fifty years ago someone in Bulgaria knew about this so called geographic tongue?” he gasped eyes wide in astonishment. And after he’d used me like a laboratory mouse in front of his students, he added; “Would you agree to come back to our laboratory some day for scientific purposes?  We’d like to take a colour picture of your tongue, because its geography is so clearly marked out in multi-coloured patches…”

I agreed. They’d just found something else unique in me.  Now … God forbid some woman will think I’m advertising myself and start ringing me. No I don’t give out my telephone number! As for the mysteries of the condition, I’d say it stops me from going to extremes. If I eat one and the same vegetable or fruit continuously, a typical pain warns me that it’s time to eat something else, so as to have a variable diet….

What happened prompted me to seek out some information on the internet. I had to laugh at the discussion between specialists as to whether geographical tongue is a disease or not. Some linked it to allergy, others to anemia or even a deficient immune system. Worried mothers called in because they couldn’t cure the spots on their babies’ tongues.  However on one thing the specialists were agreed: geographic tongue was hereditary and incurable. And how could it be cured if it’s not a disease. Only diseases are cured.

And something else caught my attention on the internet – the illustrations of geographic tongue they provided. The patterns in their photographs were pretty poor.  I stuck out my tongue in front of the mirror.  Oho! Rivers and gorges, hills and multi-coloured plains.  That’s why I’d become the focus of so much scientific interest .  I’ll go, let every interested party gaze at an outstanding example of geographic tongue!  And I will insist they write that this is a gift and not some incurable disease. A gift like any other talent… Its usefulness for me far outweighs any disadvantage.

As for that English supervisor, his amazement gave him away, that he thought Bulgaria was the new name of the banana republic Zamunda, somewhere on the African continent.