Can you do a deal?

I am going to buy a Nintendo Game & Watch.  A really cool electronic game like my friend has.  It’s about the size of a small walkman, has a little screen, and you press the buttons to move the monkey from side to side to catch bananas.  It’s really fun.  I’ve saved up my Christmas and birthday money, and my pocket money for weeks and weeks.  I’ve been waiting for our trip to New York, because you can’t get them in London, at least, I don’t have enough money for them in London.

I carefully count up my pound notes. “How do I work out how much it is in dollars?” “You times by two and a half” says my father. “That means I have $25.”
“Make sure you bargain” he says as he hands me $25 dollars in exchange for my pounds. “What do you mean?”

“They will ask you to pay more than they really want. You suggest a lower amount, say half what they asked, they reject it, you suggest a little bit more until you can agree.” “But, why?” “It’s just the way things are done here.”

“So can you bargain for everything in New York?”  “Not things like groceries, no, but expensive things like electronics don’t have fixed prices.”  I giggle as I remember the funny advert for ‘Crazy Eddie’s Electricals’ where Eddie yells like a madman about his low prices as he chops up price tickets with a giant pair of scissors.  You don’t get silly adverts like that in England.

Later, with my dollars safely folded into my purse, my mother and I take the long walk from our apartment to 42nd street, the best place for electronics.  30 blocks is quite a hike for a 9 year old and I smile proudly as my mother tells me how well I’m doing.

I must have heard the song ’42nd Street’ before, because I’m expecting it to be glamorous and sparkly, but it’s just a normal, dirty New York Street, full of small shabby shops.  Not like Crazy Eddie’s electronics emporium further uptown.  We go into a few, but they don’t have what I’m after.  “Try the little shop upstairs next door, Cohen’s Electronics.”

We push open a plain, battered, door on the street marked ‘Cohen’s Electronics’ and climb a narrow, rather grubby staircase to the first floor.  “Well this is an adventure, isn’t it darling?” says my mother, rather nervously I think, as we enter a small, stuffy, poorly lit room.  Around three of the walls are brown wood and glass cabinets, and in front of them, brown wood counters.  Behind the counters are three men, dressed in the heavy black suits and black hombergs of Hasidic Jews.

“Excuse me, do you sell Nintendo Game & Watch?”

“Oh, isn’t she cute?  Check out that accent!  Where are you from little girl?”  “I’m from London and I’d like to buy a Game & Watch, please.”

“What kind do you want English girl?” asks the man in front of me as he opens a draw under the counter, pulling out a handful.   He spreads five Game & Watches on the counter.  “This one please, how much is it?” I say as I pick up the brown one, the monkey game.

“Well normally, it’s $40, but for you can have it for $35 because you have such a cute accent.”  “I don’t have $35, can I have it for $20?”

“She’s bargaining with us, Solly!  Ooh, how cute does bargaining sound in that accent?  Well I can’t let it go for $20 but how about $25?”

“Yes please.”  “$25 dollars it is!  Sold to the little girl with the cute accent!”

I hand over the money and say goodbye, clutching my new Game & Watch to my chest.  As we walk back down the grubby stairs, we can hear the three men talking about my accent.  We celebrate my first bargain with a yellow taxi ride home.

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This post was written for the Writing Workshop at Sleep is for the Weak.  This week I suggested a prompt “tell us about a life skill you’ve learnt and a time you used it.”

Bargaining is a very useful skill in many places in the world.  In some countries, paying full price for anything, is as alien as asking the cashier in Sainsbury’s if she can do you a deal on baked beans.

The Magic Kingdom – Young at Heart Photo Album

This photo represents the beginning of my love affair with Disneyland, Disneyworld and Euro Disney (remember that?).  I think I am ten, and unlike too cool for school Laura, who tagged me, I am dressed entirely in yellow, including my shoe laces, but not including my rather fetching Mickey Mouse sun visor.  I have no idea why, no doubt I thought it was a good look in 1982 or thereabouts.  I am standing with my little brother, also fetchingly visored, and Janet, our New Zealand nanny, who we will be spending this Christmas with in Auckland.  It’s been almost ten years since I’ve seen her and I can’t wait.

I had never been anywhere as magical as the Magic Kingdom before and it’s a place I still have very fond memories of.  We’ve taken Eve to Disneyland Paris for the weekend, which she was enchanted by, but I can’t wait to take all the children to the real deal in LA.  Before you say anything, Disneyland Paris will never be the real deal.  Most of the staff are French for a start.

Now, on to my tagee, who has sent me this beautiful, sparkly Christmas picture that must have been taken with the aid of a starburst filter.  This tag has an air of mystery about it. You have to guess who she is…

She will be posting her Young at Heart photo and story tomorrow, and revealing another youthful blogger for the photo album, so keep them peeled. And you never know, you could be tagged  next. . .

NOTE: Make sure you include the name ‘Young at Heart Photo Album’ in your title and post so your entry is easy to find in Google. The originator of the meme, Tara, will be looking out for you…

There are no rules as such, just keep paying it forward.

I’ve already done it behind the scenes and she’s all ready to go. And she’s primed her tagee etc. See if you can guess who it is before you click through to find out who our sparkly blogger is . . .

The Big Apple

For a child growing up in 1970′s England, New York was a revelation. It was shiny, glamorous, attractively packaged.  And there was so much choice.  Take the cereal.  In London we had cornflakes, ginourmous boxes of weetabix from the cash and carry (actually the individually packaged biscuits were quite cool, but weetabix for months on end, not) or porridge with golden syrup as a very special treat.  Coco Pops were still a twinkle in a cereal designer’s eye.

On our first trip to New York, my brother and I were taken to the local ‘market’ D’Agostino to choose our cereal.  They had Apple Jacks, Cap’n Crunch, Lucky Charms.  The boxes were brightly coloured, with cartoon characters promising treats like bright green apple bits or pink and blue marshmallows.  They were intensely sweet, with flavours not available in nature.  It was mind blowing.

Everything about New York seemed different.  In London, we lived in a terraced house, but in New York we stayed in an apartment, with a shiny, woodpanelled lift with buttons to press, a cosy Bounce-fragranced basement laundry room and a roof garden up in the clouds (well, the 17th floor) and the aptly named ‘white cloud’ loo paper was soft and luxurious.  The cable television had a dizzying array of channels, some just for children, can you imagine that?  Forget Mr Ben after lunch followed by an afternoon of racing from Kempton.

Outside people in glossy fur coats walked their tiny dogs on wide pavements, made for strolling.  The sirens weren’t a comforting nee naw, nee naw like at home, they sounded more urgent, scarier, as if they were rushing to a real disaster, not to rescue a cat up a tree.  Even the weather was dramatic.  In London we mostly had a little bit cold or a little bit warm, with rain every so often.  In New York you had t-shirt weather one day and a thrilling foot of snow the next.

All cities have a unique smell, and New York was no different, with carts vending ‘franks’ and pretzels,  airconditioning and heating units blasting out alternate gusts of cold and hot air with a strange chemical odour, cinnamon flavoured everything, squishy leather seats in the yellow taxis, and the seductive sweet, chocolatey smell wafting out of David’s Cookies.  A whole shop that just sold cookies.

The New York of my childhood no longer exists and if it did, the gloss would be a little tarnished.  These days I eat real apples for my breakfast, not apple flavour crunchy bits, and those fur coats, which seemed so glamorous to an impressionable nine year old, are less than appealing.  But I still wish I could go back.

This post was inspired by Josie’s writing workshop at Sleep is for the Weak. She asked “What do you miss?”