My buddy comes home back to Klaipeda for a couple weeks for classes. He works in Ireland. I know many really great students who take corrospondence courses abroad, because Universities abroad are often much better. Especially much better than Klaipeda University, which is nothing to be especially proud of. A few other Unis I could understand, but this guy's making a special particular effort, flying back and forth, to attend a sub par university. Nobody in his right mind would put so much effort into this. It would be like somebody flying back and forth from Britain twice a year to take two weeks worth of classes at Middlesex Community College. His family doesn't even live in Klaipeda!
Then there's his grasp of business (it extends to all aspects of life, really). He told me about his plans to bring back cartons of cigarettes and sell them. The plan is to buy them for 16€ here and sell them for 30€ there, making a 14€ profit. The normal price in Dublin is 60€. I asked him why he goes for so little, why he doesn't go for a high profit.
"Everybody charges half on the black market."
"Yeah, but why do you?"
"Everybody charges half on the black market."
"Yeah I heard you the first time, but just cause everyone does it doesn't mean you have to."
"Everybody charges half on the black market."
"Yes, but what would happen if you charged, say, 40?"
"Nobody would buy them."
"Why?"
"Everybody charges half on the black market."
"So you're telling me people would rather pay 60 in a shop than 40 for your imports?!"
"Yes, or they'd wait for somebody charging thirty."
At this point I actually grabbed by the shoulders and shook him like a British nanny, "People who smoke need to smoke today! The black market isn't unlimited! How the fuck can you tell me people who know these are quality imports, used to buying Lithuanian cigarettes, will tell you to piss off and go fay 50% more in a shop?!?!"
"I don't know. Everybody charges half on the black market."
Next instance. We go to buy beer on the way to the movies. He says, "Are you sure about this? Who's gonna let us go into the theater with beer?"
"Nobody, but they're not going to seach my briefcase. I do it every time. I never go to the movies beerless."
"I don't think it's gonna work."
"Why not, if it always works?"
"We'll see."
Of course it worked, as always. Later in the evening we were walking to catch a microbus and got a couple more beer for the road. He says, "Are you sure about this? The driver's gonna let us go into the bus with beer?"
"Sure. I ride the micro with a beer all the time."
"Maybe we should hide it. I'm sure he won't let us on."
"But I'm telling you I do it all the time! Twice a week at least for the past 14 months!"
"I don't think it'll work."
I bet him double or nothing (he owed me 20 lits from earlier), but he refused, hiding his beet in his coat as we boarded the bus, i holding my beer out prouding, demonstrating without a doubt that the driver had seen it clearly.
Third instance. We go to a club. We get drinks and walk across the dance floor to a good point of observation of the dancers. I turn around and see him by the stairs looking like a lost, abandoned puppy. I go back and try to hold his hand so I can lead him over. He withdraws his hand and I ask him if he doesn't wanna go over there where I just was, and he says yes.
"Well, if you can't just follow me, I'll have to hold your hand."
"I can follow you."
He followed me. After five minutes I asked him if that isn't that guy we met last night, and he says yeah, I said oh neat, and walked over to say hi. The guy asks me if I'm here alone and, unsurprised, I look behind me to see him in the spot I'd just left, again looking like a lost, abandoned puppy.
We had another conversation about a particular sexual inclination of his, which I claimed was just as decided oldfashioned and wrong as racism, not to mention misogynistic. He agreed! But somehow our conversation ended as fruitlessly as did our cigarette market strategy conversation: it may be oldfashioned and misogynistic, but so?, was his position.
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7 comments:
i wonder what the black market is like. i mean, how does one get into that? do you just sell on street corners? do they have regular clients? your suggestions, arai, make a lot of sense. assuming that the black market is what i thin it is, then people will buy from whatever vendor they run into when they need smokes. your friend reads too many economics textbooks (or not enough maybe).
i'll put money, at any odds you want, that he's never read a text book at all--he's studying (five years!) to be a gym teacher. hey, that's what saidas did though, and he's got money to burn (but lives with his parents).
as far as the black market goes, yes, guys on street corners is what i meant, and i think that's correct, unless there is something bigger/better going on regularly, like the hijacking of cigarette trucks.
wait a minute, you were against a sexual inclinations/position because it was old-fashioned and misogynistic? pray tell
well, i was thinking more that the black market would involve friends, colleagues, relatives maybe even. people i know, or people the people i know know (?), contacting me to buy stuff illegally. i mean, think of drug dealers, i doubt they get too many deals just selling to random passers-by on the street. they probably work on a referral system at the least.
either way, i agree, your friend is twisted. FIVE YEARS to be a gym teacher?!?!!?!! i mean, c'mon. ellen's gonna be a licensed nurse practitioner in less than half that amount of time.
He’s pro-fellatio, anti-cunnilingus, on principle in theory, and in practice. I find this of be offensive to the point of losing all respect for him. I’m trying hard to stand the sight of him. After all, if I be friends with a communist, I’m sure I can get over this, though I’ll never really respect him.
Just so you know, oral sex can cause cancer. See here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2130125/
while that may be true (not likely), abstinence of any kind for the purpose of cancer prevention is worse than cutting off your nose to spite your face.
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