The electronics run-around

If you want to be surprised by the number of electronic devices you own that require recharging, then I suggest bringing them all with you to a foreign country with unfamiliar electrical sockets and trying to keep them all charged while being limited to three functional adapter plugs (we have more but they don't stay in the socket).  That method worked for us, as each day becomes an electronic game of musical chairs - unplugging the computer to make room for the ipad, unplugging the ipad for the ipod - time for a shave - out goes the ipod in goes the electric shaver.

Without it being a conscious plan, we brought enough electronic devices to stock a small shop - good thing we weren't stopped at customs and asked to explain why.   We have the laptop computers, ipad, ipod, kindle, kindle fire (thanks gigi and barry), various cameras including a Flip-style video camera (thanks Caroline), electric razor and electric toothbrush - at last count thirteen devices that all had their dedicated electric outlets back in DC, and are all now competing for the attentions of the adapters to bring them back to life when their batteries die.

Eventually we'll return to one of our first stops in Ubud, the local small electronics outlet, to buy more of the working adapters.  It was one of our first experiences in a Balinese store.  We had a checklist of items we wanted to buy including the adapters, a desk lamp, a hair dryer, and a multi-outlet extension cord.

The only multi-slot extensions cords they had came disassembled.  The clerks demonstrated that the process was to select the kind of wire- grounded or ungrounded-  and the length of the cord, then they would cut the cord to length, give you the cord, the multi-socket box, and the plug that goes into the wall socket for you to assemble at home.  With the help of our driver, Dewa, translating, I explained that I didn't know how to assemble the pieces and so would try to find a store that didn't sell the do-it-yourself version.  They looked at me dumbfounded as if they couldn't tell whether I was trying to make a particularly lame joke.  They couldn't believe that I was saying that I couldn't accomplish such a simple assembly job.   After seeing their reaction, I thought hopefully that perhaps it is easier than it looks and not wanting to admit to such an extreme level of incompetence I agreed to buy the component parts of the extension cord.  I figured it wasn't such a huge waste of money to leave it gathering dust, plus I had another possible solution - telling the handyman employed by the landlord who came routinely to fix items around the house that I was too busy to do the assembly myself, so would he mind taking on the task of putting it together - which I would make clear we both understood was childishly easy to do.

I still had a chance to earn the respect of the no-nonsense middle-aged woman who ran the store by showing that I wasn't a typical tourist who paid the quoted price, but that I knew that most store owners inflate their prices by 50% or more expecting to engage in good-natured banter that would lower the price to more reasonable levels.  Large department stores have instituted fixed-price shopping, but bartering is the way of business with small shops.  This store didn't have price tags on the items, but to be sure I asked Dewa, our driver, whether bartering was expected.  Dewa discreetly checked with one of the shop clerks who indicated that the prices could be negotiated.  I was surprised that Dewa asked, as I assumed as a local he would know without asking, and it was also a strange question to ask of a shop clerk, but I was glad to have the information.

As we were wrapping up our shopping, I was trying to decide between two desk lamps.   This was my opening to start bartering.  I suggested to the store manager that I would buy the nicer lamp if the price were lower. But she briskly said that all the prices were fixed prices, as she continued tallying them up on her sales pad.  I called over Dewa as reinforcement, and he explained to her that we had already been told that the prices were negotiable.  But the store manager told us that our information was incorrect, all the prices were fixed prices, and that they were all good prices, the same as the locals pay. 

We were at a standoff.  It was her store.  She was the sole authority on the pricing methodology used.  So we had to concede.  Not willing to give in completely,  I pointed out that since we were buying so much that we clearly deserved a discount.  So after much back and forth, she finally said that yes, she would agree to give me a little discount at the end.

She continued writing down prices from memory into her sales pad without referring to any published lists.  As a newly landed visitor, I had no way of accurately evaluating the situation.  Perhaps it was a fixed-price store and she knew the prices of most of her inventory from memory and she was giving us the same price as the locals.  Of course there was the other possibility, that she knew a gullible fish-out-of-water when she saw one, one who couldn't even assemble a simple extension cord, and she was making up sweetly inflated prices according to a whim on her sales sheet. 

I had no way of knowing, and had to hope that if we were being ripped off, it wasn't by too outrageous an amount.  When she was done, the prices did not seem unreasonable to my Western eyes, Dewa was giving no hint that an injustice had been perpetrated against me, and thanks to my savvy negotiating acumen as a special concession to my desire to negotiate she agreed to reduce the final tally by a full 20,000 Rupiahs, or about $2.  My pride thus restored by this demonstration that my business savvy can triumph even when plopped down in unfamiliar lands, we paid and left the store with our purchases.

I still had to face the disassembled extension cord.  It sat in a corner, untouched, for over a week.  But one day I became frustrated enough at not being able to use the desk lamp with its too short cord, that I tentatively started looking at the pieces to the extension cord to see if I could figure out how to put them together.  Fortunately I had brought a swiss-army style knife that had a wire cutter and wire insulation puller.

Then Charlotte wandered in and offered to help.  In many ways this was a good thing.  A short while earlier she had been so angry at me for giving her a consequence of no ice cream for dessert because of her misbehavior while out at dinner, that she threw a fit and threatened to jump on me when she got older.  She was now willing to forgive and wanted to mend things between us.  So the two of us worked together on the project, and after many false starts - too little insulation removed, too much wire exposed - miraculously we got the extension cord to work.

It now is in use keeping this laptop charged, while the other laptop sits nearby waiting its turn with the adapter.