Morning Errands

Last night I tripped over my phone wire and ripped it out of the socket, so I had to buy a new wire this morning. Luckily since we've had other wire issues, I knew right where to go. There is a man that has a fix-it shop (along a row of other fix-it shops on fix-it shop street), near our house, who we have had fix a computer wire and the remote for our dvd player. This morning, after my morning walk, I walked down to his shop and showed him the broken phone wire and asked if he could make me a new one, twice the size of my old one.
He happily agreed and set to work. He took a length of wire from a spool of wire on his tool bench, measured out three meters and cut it from the spool. He then took out two "phone wire ends" and used some fancy wrench/wire cutter/plug adjuster tool, to strip the ends of the wires and fit them on to the plastic end pieces. He then tested the new wire by plugging each end into some wire tester gadget he has on his work bench, nodded his affirmation that it worked and handed it to me, charging a dollar for the wire and the "show." Much more fun than just buying a new phone wire in Home Depot.

After leaving the fix-it shop with my new cord, I walked back home and saw a man selling pineapple in the market. I stopped and asked him how much for a pineapple and he replied, 10,000 VND or about 55 cents. I said I would like one and then sat through  my second show of the morning as the man expertly sliced off the skin with a small machete-like knife and then proceeded to cut out the tough bits like he was carving a block of wood. After a few minutes of this skillful demonstration, he handed me my fresh cut pineapple and sent me off with a friendly smile. Running errands here can be a real pleasure.