Somalia is on the phone, do you accept the charges?!

My cousin from D.C. was in town over the weekend and while I was at the infamous Red Carpet with her and my sister, we met a guy from the Ivory Coast. He was cool and knew a lot about soccer. Also, he is not exactly relevant to my story though his huge bling was shaped like the continent of Africa and I correctly identified where the Cote d' Ivore (French spell check?) is located.

After trying super hard to get a cab post-Erbert's & Gerbert's action, we finally succeeded. Our driver was a Somalian guy. He was a nice and also talked soccer with me. He reminded me of the Somalians I used to talk to on a semi-regular basis over the past 18 months or so.

I got my first cell phone in late July '05 before my senior year at SJU started. I was finally cool (and that lasted until about 37 minutes later). Anyway, I started getting calls almost right away and the people would either speak in a language I didn't know (which is all of them except some English) or ask about the money I owed them. This did not bode well, as I was expecting to feel loved and embraced as a result of my new technology, not confused and harassed.

After awhile and a series of phone calls on my behalf, I found out that the number T-Mobile gave me had previously been that of an Ahmed Muhammed. Now, I can't say for certain, but besides owing money to companies based in Texas and So. Cal., he had a lot of Somalian friends in the Twin Cities and, yes, Somalia. I felt like he had a good thing going (though it killed my minutes, he may have had a sweet plan or some kind of calling card system).

At any rate, I learned that blindly answering calls in the 3-5AM range is, as a general rule, a bad move. Even though that wouldn't count as "peak time" for someone in the CMT, I think it did since I answered calls coming from Somalia, assuming I figured out the time difference correctly. That damn quadratic formula always gets me, though...

An example conversation:

Me: Uh, he-hello?

Somalian person: Hey, somthing something, word that sounds like "bacon," something something.

Me: No Ahmed, me sleepy!

Note: I don't now why I began to speak to them in broken English... or in a slower, louder way than normal but I did. It was our thing. And hey, maybe they were speaking to me slowly and louder than normal, too. Isn't that a univeral go-to move when someone can't understand what the hell you're saying to them?

You know, the little things you hate about your cell service are the same things you come to miss. I don't get any more random calls now, and while I guess I like a lot of things about Sprint, I just don't love them. Ya know? Oh well, time to listen to Duran Duran, The Cure, The Clash and Cheap Trick.

"Surrender" is STILL a mega hit, I don't care what the hell McCarty said... he was probably drunk!

~Matt