Yesterday afternoon, at about 5 pm, I was riding around just like everyday, but that day I rode past one of my friend’s mother’s shop. She sells things like soft drinks, candy, cookies, different fruits, cards for cell phones, and many more things.
This time while I riding past, there were a lot of people around so I came in and asked “What’s happening?” My friend’s mother told me that a foreigner wanted to buy a cell phone card from her (a card that is prepaid credit for your mobile phone), but he didn’t have enough money to pay for it. So she wanted me to do the translating for her to get the rest of the money.
That guy looked really drunk. It seemed to be hard for me to do the translation, because I don’t speak drunk. Anyway, that guy just had to pay 5,000 riel more (which is $1.25), but he didn’t want to pa. He just wanted to take the card and go. I told him: “You can’t go if you not pay the rest of the money.”
It was really hard to talk with this guy, especially because he was really drunk. I’d been talking with him almost 20 minutes and I started to lose my patience, so I said some words to scare him (even though he was very big). I said: “If you do not give the rest of the money you might have trouble.” Also my friend, who is the seller’s son, was there too. His name is Frog (that’s his nickname). At the same time that guy asked me: “Why is everyone looking at me.” I said: “Because you want to buy this lady’s stuff, but you not give her enough money.”
About 1 or 2 minutes later this guy started to change his mind. He took out his $20 note and gave it to me and he went back out to a tuk-tuk. Then I told him: “Wait! You have to get back your change.” But he said: “NO! I WANT TO GO NOW!!!”
I said “Okay then!” and I told Frog’s mother to keep the change. So after the drunken guy left without his change, Frog’s mother was very happy. Because the money that she received from the drunken guy was about 8 day’s profit for her.
At the end I felt happy for Frog’s mother. But the same time I also felt so sorry for the drunken guy too, that he didn’t understand the situation.
