Yabancı Soap

I was in this shop--cramped and stuffed with everything: dishes, silverware, electrical cords and extensions, dust brushes, plastic bags, dish drying wracks, sponges, soap. I was picking through. I wanted rubber gloves but didn't know the word for it. I kept my mouth shut--I didn't want them to overcharge me for the gloves if they realized I was a foreigner. They offered me some Coca Cola, which I politely and briefly declined. After a couple more minutes the guy said to me--in English: "Where are you from?"

I wanted to die laughing at myself. There I was, trying to be discreet about not knowing the words for rubber gloves, and yet I still oozed some Invisible Yabancı Vibe that he could sense. How?! How?!

In the end I found my rubber gloves, to which I added a Danon water bottle filled with bulk liquid dish detergent--I paid two lira total, not a bad price. For a yabancı.

Treasure or Trash?!

I was walking along the street today--past those guys who sell random stuff on the street (mobile face plates, cheap key rings, horrible imported toys sold for dirt cheap)--when I saw the most boring book title staring up at me. It was some kind of "brief overview" of "plastics." You know. For specialists. From the 1960s. Amused, I stopped and picked it up, thumbing through the glossy but water-damaged pages. Amidst the extensive two-columned text discussing god knows what about the history and use of plastics in the booming global industry were scattered black and white photos of quaint items. Here was a die-cast, two-tone ink well. Over here, a bizarre molded part for an air-conditioner that looked unlike any air-conditioner I'd ever seen. Thank god there were captions or I wouldn't have known what the hell I was looking at.

Certainly not going to be required reading for a class anywhere in Izmir. It was the kind of thing that would be perfect as a gag gift for my boss's birthday. Thinking it might be cheap enough to consider, I asked the seller how much it was.

Response: "I don't know blah blah blah blah foreign book blah blah blah antique blah blah very old blah di blah blah blah I don't know but very expensive blah blah blah blah 80 blah blah blah."

Me: "So--how much is it?"

Response: "blah blah blah very expensive blah blah blah blah foreign book blah I don't know blah."

Me: *getting bored* "How much?"

Response: "blah blah blah expensive"

Me: *smiling sweetly at him and setting the book back down on the sidewalk* "Ok, it's very expensive. Thank you."

Response: *him calling desperately after me as I walked away* "Fifty is ok!"

Fifty?! FIFTY?!?!! After I almost died laughing, I felt legitimately bad for the guy. Here he is, in Turkey, obviously speaking ZERO English, thinking that he's hit on some gold mine of an antique book that must be worth a small fortune. I mean, with such a long, pretentious-looking title embossed in gold of all materials, and such wide glossy pages, who could blame him?! I mean, he must have seen the die-cast two-tone inkwell, or the molded part for the air-conditioner, but without understanding the English captions, mistaken the thing as a plan to save the universe. Hell, I'd want 50 lira for that, too.

But WHAT is he going to do with this book? I fear he may try to hang onto it forever. He'll wait for the perfect price, when really, any church in America would pay someone fifty cents just to take the damn thing off the table at their rummage sale.

No, no, no. It's up to me to rescue the man from such a horrible fate. I think I'll go back tomorrow and see if he's still there. I'd give him five lira for it, just to be able to tell the story.

Public Safety Restored, Yabancı In Custody

~~ You know in films how there are those dream sequences that are a blend of reality and fantasy? ... It's all true until the assault... ~~

İZMİR --- Turkish bankers and innocent citizens nearly lost their lives today at a local İş Bank. The psychopathic Yabancı--who claims to be the Turkish popstar, Ajda Pekkan, but looks nothing like the 63-year old plastic surgery posterchild, and who speaks Turkish with an American accent--had become increasingly frustrated over recent days and finally "went postal" when she had almost finished a bank transaction. Police have leaked to our exclusive reporter the following events which led to the Yabancı's terrifying behavior.

The Yabancı realized on Sunday, October 4th that she had neglected to deposit sufficient funds in her HalkBank account--thereby botching her monthly electronic transfer to her landlord's İş Bank account.

Monday morning, the Yabancı proceeded to a neighborhood HalkBank branch, waited in the queue behind fifty other customers, deposited her 600 lira and inquired about the electronic transfer, only to be told in barely-comprehensible motorboat Turkish by the unsympathetic bank teller that she must go to the branch where she originally authorized the monthly electronic transfer. No. It could not be done from the neighborhood branch, despite being the same bank. Frustrated, the Yabancı went to her employer's Turkish accountant for help that very afternoon.

İş Bank, which has nearly 100 branches throughout greater Izmir, requires a 30 lira processing fee if a customer from another bank (such as the Yabancı, who uses HalkBank) wishes to deposit money into an İş Bank customer's account unless the transaction is completed at the branch were the İş Bank customer officially opened his or her account. The Yabancı was very displeased to learn this. After sufficient tribulation, the Yabancı was able to ascertain the address for her landlord's branch--which was, purportedly, in the Yabancı's neighborhood. There are, however, four or five İş Bank's in a 2 kilometer radius.

Monday, the Yabancı was further irked by the ruffle shirt she wore--which she later admitted to police had been a horrible fashion mistake. Her co-workers were quite amused by the ruffles, likening it to that worn by the flamboyant Welsh interior designer, Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, and one of them eventually took pity on Yabanci and composed a poem in her honor (police found the poem crumpled at the bottom of the Yabancı's purse):

Lines Written on the Occassion of Yabancı's Display of Sartorial Flamboyance:

Yabancı, who, after banking woes,

Appeared considerably peeved,

Waged war upon financiers

By rolling up her lacy sleeves.

Only to come to work to face

A barrage of satire

From the green-eyed monsters that beheld

Her splendid attire.

Yabancı, unacquainted with the iron

Though fond of fringe and ruffle

Rose above their childish taunts

With ne'er a brawl or scuffle.

She disregarded those whose garb

Was ragged or pathetic

And she triumphed over their mean minds,

Their mediocre aesthetic!

Tuesday morning the Yabancı prepared for the day only to discover that her milk had gone bad. Her unspoiled cereal on the counter, she left the house at 9:45 resolved to (a) withdraw 600 lira from HalkBank; (b) go to İş Bank and resolve her debt; (c) purchase milk. Before she left, she called the water delivery man and ordered a bottle--leaving her flatmate at home to pay the man on arrival. The Yabancı left her flat and walked due west to the HalkBalk ATM where she withdrew exactly 600 lira, discovering that she had no extra money in her wallet with which to buy milk, an interim breakfast snack, or pay the İş Bank processing fee, should she find herself at the wrong bank branch. The Yabancı then proceeded to the İş Bank, doubling back past her flat, and walking another kilometer and a half.

After some wandering she found it, asked the security guard in the lobby if the address on a slip of paper matched their physical location, told a teller her landlord's name and account number, followed the security guard to the ATM outside the building, gave him her tax identification number (police are still not sure what the fuck any of this had to do with anything), and answered her incessently-ringing mobile: It was the water delivery man who, though he had found the apartment (not for the first time as the Yabancı is his frequent customer) found no one at home when he rang the bell.

"My friend is home--number nine," the Yabancı repeated every time the water man said something in horribly accented, slurred Turkish. Eventually, the Yabancı simply apologized to the water man and hung up on him because she couldn't understand him anyway, and the security guard was trying to explain...

She must visit a different branch in Bornova because her landlord hadn't opened his account in the place she was standing. The branch the security guard described to her was closer to the Yabancı's flat, about 15 minutes away on foot, and approximately ten meters from the HalkBank ATM the Yabanci had visited earlier Tuesday morning.

Incredulous, the Yabancı stalked away, returned home and ate her bowl of milkless cereal. Her jaw worked furiously over the flakes of corn and rice. She set out once more, this time ready to rant if need be. She reached her destination at 11:17, received a number for the queue--3352--and endured another 30 minutes as tellers dealt with the 34 customers in front of her. The Yabancı also endured an annoying mother and child have this "conversation" for approximately 10 minutes: "Mom!" "Yes my dear?" ... "Mom!" "Yes my dear?" ... "Mom!" "Yes my dear?"...

When her number was finally called and she reached a window she was ready to knife someone--only to discover the teller quietly on the phone:

"Hi! What are you doing?... Mmmhmm... I'm good. You?... blah blah blah... blah blah blah... Ok... blah blah blah..."

At which point the Yabancı bitchily cleared her throat and thrust all of the paperwork across the counter. The teller put down the phone with a watery smile but the Yabancı just stared back and in halting Turkish explained her situation. Some six minutes later the Yabanci had

completed the transaction that had been plaguing her life for the past 36 hours and was told by the chipper teller, "O kadar! That's all!"

It was this final remark that sent the Yabancı over the edge. She lost all self control and brandished her weapon, opening fire in Turkish and English with her vitriolic mouth. What began as an assault aimed at the teller quickly escalated into a systematic assault on İş Bank, HalkBank, the Turkish banking institution as a whole, the culture that allows children to be publically molly-coddled to the point where the sanctity of The Bank is destroyed, stupid water delivery men, spoiled milk, traffic, gevrek hollerers, cobblestone streets, stray cats, door handles which don't turn properly, unfit people, rain, uneven sidewalks, Efes Beer and Laurence Llewelyn Bowen.

Bank employees and customers alike looked on with horror as the Yabancı sprayed the room with wave after wave of English/Turkish babble. Security guards wrestled the Yabancı to the floor, attempting to tazer her into submission, but she escaped at the last minute, hopping onto a dolmuş.

The police were called and they began a search of the area. They were fruitless for hours until they followed a tip called in by a dolmuş driver. After an altercation between the Yabancı and the dolmuş driver about the false advertisement of his route--ending a fair kilometer from the neighborhood the Yabancı thought she was going to--the driver called the police. The driver's description of the Yabancı matched that given by the İş Bank teller. Police searched the radius of the dolmuş' last stop and found the Yabancı huffily walking.

Backup was called, the Yabancı was surrounded and cornered by squad cars, and police were able to bring the dangerous woman into custody for questioning. Her employer was notified and the expat community there sent an immediate and heartfelt display of solidarity in composing extra poetry:

Perseverence

When dabbling in finance

A host of woes await

And banking tribulations

Are unlikely to abait.

But the Yabanci maid

Has braved the trials

of bulls and bears in spate

and has reimbursed her landlord even if

her rent was late.

The Yabancı is unavailable for comment but police say she has vowed never, ever, ever, ever ever again to (a) let there be insufficient funds to process her monthly electronic transfer; nor (b) wear the ruffle shirt.

Gevrek Geliyor (or, The Bagel is coming)

I've heard him many times before. Walking around the neighborhood, hollering something to draw attention. And despite his daily tour and incessant wailing, I could never understand what he was saying--is he collecting junk? talking about vegetables?--until yesterday. I left the house at 8:28, still in a fog of sleep. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, a teenager sauntered by with a tray of gevreks (the Turkish equivalent of the bagel--only waaaay cheaper and more common and CAKED in sesame seeds) resting on his head.

He hadn't finished his first holler before I recognized him. It's you! You're the one disturbing the neighborhood's peace. Every. Day. At about 8 am. I sped up, wanting to evade his path. When I was a mere meter in front of him, I could sense an immanent holler. The air behind him was sucked into his massive lungs and experienced a momentary vaccuum right before he wailed.

"Sicak gevrek." (Hot gevrek.)

God it was loud. Sort of sing-songy but unappreciated since I was still technically asleep. My hollerer kept hollering.

"Gevrek geliyor!" (The gevrek is coming!) I walked faster, joining the few other people heading to work. No one looked particularly excited about the hot, coming gevreks, let alone rush over to him to buy their own piping hot gevrek before all the gevreks are gone. In fact...

"Sicak gevrek... bir lira... Gevrek geliyor!" (Hot gevrek... 1 lira... the gevrek is coming!)

... Everyone else was ignoring him, too, rushing away, trying to avoid the blast of sound emanating from his fit, soon-to-be-man lungs. He should still have been in school. Maybe he's practicing to be an imam, I wryly considered. He could do the call to prayer without the frigging megaphone broadcasting to the neighborhood.

I kept my pace up. After awhile, he stopped hollering about the gevreks being hot and simply kept repeating that the gevrek was coming.

Eventually The Hollerer must stop and set up his tray somewhere like all the other gevrek vendors. God only knows where he stops, but he uses my neighborhood as part of his route to the eventual resting point. It's a trade-off: Would I want him anchored to my corner, hollering all day, or would I be happier with his current morning route? I don't know but I'm just glad it's not me doing the hollering.