At one point in my recent travels, I started having trouble plugging in my Samsung phone. I went off in search of a T-Mobile store at a shopping center in Bangkok — thanks Google for sending me to a ghost store, bounced off a phone store and a phone repair store (who wanted 800 baht to fix the phone). After failing to communicate blowing out the USB port to the repair place, they sent me to another floor where there was a Samsung store I thought, but it was a Samsung repair center.

I certainly did not impress the young Thai guy at the desk either with my Thai or my hand sign skills, but he went and got me a numbered ticket. I watched the TV monitor for the ticket number since I’m not great at reading or understanding Thai. Then to my surprise, when my number came up the announcement voice switched from Thai to English and I was directed to a desk where the Thai woman spoke English. Gadzooks, I thought. This ain’t the first idiot tourist that’s been in here! Anyway, she disappeared with the phone for a minute or two, returned after removing something from the port, and handed it back to me after plugging it in to show it would charge now, and she did not charge me for the repair.