10.18.2004

Urgent!

cc: Sri Lankan Trishaw Drivers
bcc: Sidewalk Salesguys
from: Irate Whitey Girl

Look, folks, I just want to help you in your business methodology. I am certainly a consumer of many goods and services provided by you and your class of individuals. I enjoy shopping and riding in tuk-tuks very much! However, this business of solicitation has got to stop.
No, really: if I want something, I will ask for it.

It is not helpful when every trishaw driver in a whole line of you asks me, "taxi, ma'am?"! You see, if I said no to the first guy, chances are that I am not tired enough to want a ride once I have walked five yards further! I am not comparison shopping!

It is especially unhelpful (and in fact off-putting) when every single one of you says "hello! hello!" in an effort, I presume, to gain my attention. I will not be wakened from some bizarre reverie and suddenly realize I am in dire need of a ride. I am somewhat aware of my surroundings and cognizant of the distance I have left to walk. If that distance is dismaying, I will seek assistance, do not worry.

And you there on the sidewalk, with the fabric/toys/knives/safety pins/scrub brushes/bric-a-brac, I am in fact capable of seeing what you are holding. You don't have to yell what you have. You don't have to waggle it at me--do I look sorely in need of an orange plastic toy baby that winds up and swims?

All y'all--seriously, "I don't want it" means "go the hell away," not "please convince me because I am only saying no over the price".
Many thanks!

ps--if you are holding five or six different things, mostly of decent value, like two necklaces, a knife, a teapot, and a walkman, I know you stole them. Shame on you.

1 comment:

laura said...

so you're probably really irritated by all that, but your post was prety amusing from my perspective. i've got to deal with some of that nonesense over here, but if i walk at a decent pace the vendors get the idea that i'm not a tourist and leave me alone. here, those folks seem to congregate around the louvre/eiffel tower and i promptly learned that if i don't want to get clogged up in the traffic of solicitators and people who stop to gawk i've got to avoid those areas completely. so what did i do to ease my pain? i started photographing the tourists...

and i guess this makes it evident that i'm out here reading, too...