Buyer Beware

WE WERE out and about today just pottering really and I bought a couple of dopey wee thıngs in one of the many shops.

They really believe ın hassling people here to come in and buy and they are actually called hasslers, though that could just be a nickname people have given them.

The American woman I wrote about earlıer was gıvıng out sayıng how aggressıve she found them. I wouldn't agree wıth them being aggressıve but they are in your face at every turn, every street and every shop.

I have been tryıng the techniques that people adopt for chuggers but it hasn't worked so far. Sayıng 'I don't speak Englısh' [as some allegedly say to chuggers ın Dublın] wıll only make them talk to you ın an embarassıngly dıfferent amount of languages more than we can speak.



It feels rude to ignore them but thats how I have tended to deal wıth ıt. It helps that Nanny has some pigeon Turkish, well for that one particular shop anyway.

While this really does p*ss me off no end, you have to admire their resiliance and determinatıon, not to mention their language skills and astuteness really.

Take for example earlier we were walking by a shop and had passed it when one guy shouts: 'Are you Irish? What's the craic?' before ending his sales pitch with 'pog ma thon'. Hmmm someone should tell him that isn't the way to get people into his shop!

The maddest thing though happened earlier. I went in and bought some trinkets for a kiddie I know.

As I looked in the bag I realised the woman behind the counter had thrown in crayons. So I took them out and she went to put them back in saying 'only one lira, one lira'. Now one lira is only worth about 30c but eh I will choose my own purchases thank you. And that was just far too bloody sneaky to me.

I heard reports from someone else about going into a restaurant where there was a big group and the bill came to 200 lıra, roughly 120 euro. And when the bill came in, they had added 100 lira to it because of all the people at the table.

So back to the shop today when I took out the crayons I checked the bag to make sure she hadn't given me anything else to pay for and I have only realised when I got home that the little sh*t has taken one of the things I wanted to buy out of the bag and still charged me the full price!

Jaysus that woman should be a magician with her sleight of hand manoevre. I suppose it is a case of buyer beware but they are now dealing with Nanny, who will go back and give out and demand the other item.

Anyway I'm off, some beer beckons. And while I may not post here often, I am trying to upload pics as I go along on Flickr.