Growing up my mom never let us make phone calls after 10pm at night. Or answer them. She just didn't think it was proper to call that late. I don't blame her. She did have 4 daughters, after all. It's likely with several teenagers and a couple of tweens in the house at once, the phone lines are bound to be tied up. To this day I'm still paranoid about calling people after 10pm--even if I know them to be night owls. And I would definitely never dream of knocking on someone's door that late. Well, unless they were expecting me, or if it were an emergency, or if there was going to be a beauty pageant starting shortly on some obscure cable channel and I had stupidly cancelled our cable package a few months earlier. (That's never actually happened, but it's got the potential to occur sometime during my life time. I have ever told you how much I love pageants? Um, of course I have.)
So when we get a knock on our door at 10:26pm on Sunday night (a sacred-never-leave-the- house- except-to-go-to- church-kind- of-day, according to my mother) it's a bit unusual. Not too mention that we don't really know many people in this city, so who could it be?!
It's the cable guy, of course. This is the third late-night house call we've gotten in a couple of months. I know that Hong Kong is an all-hours kind of city, but seriously, folks, who wants to upgrade their internet/cable service at 10:45 at night? Usually the conversation is pretty quick because a) we don't speak Cantonese, b) we don't have a TV, and c) we don't have a phone line. It's all over in a minute or two and Mr or Ms Cable-Guy is off to ding-dong our neighbors. But still, it's weird huh? Maybe there are only a few reps to cover the whole city and 7 million people can't be reached between the hours of 8-5. Or maybe word got out that we don't have a TV, so they keep sending reps at odd hours of the night in hopes of pulling off an intervention. It's still a shocker to the locals when I tell them we don't own a television. Who knows.
Sometimes this city just baffles me.
About Me
- The Tilted Tulip
- It's time I come clean. My name is Erika and I'm a thrift-aholic. I'm a stay-at-home wife, mama of one, and on those rare moments when I'm not at a thrift store, garage/estate sale, someone's attic, etc., I can be found at home in my teeny-tiny apartment in sunny San Diego making things out of felt, reading blogs, baking pies, chillin' with my fat cat, Quincy, smiling at my husband and making up ridiculous jingles. Although the sun and I are not the best of friends (I prefer cold, drizzly days to palm trees on the beach, and long socks and scarves to flip flops and bathing suits), I'm discovering the many joys of Southern California living. I'm making it my new goal in life to bring you a treasure-trove of vintage and handmade goodies and hopefully bring some cheer and goodwill into your life.
7 comments:
I also lived by the no calls after ten o'clock rule, but after I got married I realized that not everyone played by those rules. I would have to say it is pretty freaky to have a cable guy come to your place at 10:30 PM. Fortunately in this town that would not be an appropriate business practice.
i don't mind the late night phone calls, but the early am ones freak me out. i know that if someone is calling early in the morning either someone is dead, or, more likely, it's one of my mom friends who has already been awake for 3 or 4 hours!
andi-
yeah, those early morning ones should be outlawed.
I hate the early morning soliciters. I'm almost always still in my jammies!
Honk Kong is my kind of place. "I like the night life... I like to boogie... on the Disco rah-ound... oh yeah..."
So then, does Letterman come on in the morning in HK?
Back in the day when we had TV, occasionally I would wake up just in time to watch the CBS Evening news.
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