Wednesday evening we had our first Prague dinner party. We invited Ben and Pam, our key masters from upstairs, for a dinner of fruit, cheese, cold cuts, and the staple of Prague, “work horse rolls” known to Czechs as Rohliky. Ben works for Monster.com a website dedicated helping people and employers in finding/filling jobs. Pam takes care of her two precocious toddlers and deals with all the drama that happens in the building.
Pam told a story about finding her babysitter or as they call her, Hannah the nanny. Hannah
comes two nights a week so Ben and Pam can have a night out. Pam says a typical night out for them is dinner at a restaurant and then a couple’s trip to Tesco, the major grocery story in town. She said that when Hannah called speaking proper English to inquire about the position, Pam told Ben, “She had us at ‘Hello”. Hannah sounds just like Mary Poppins and when she dropped by for her first visit she came into the living room, sat on the floor in the middle of the room, gave a bright smile to the kids, and they just ran to her and sat on her lap. Think Julie Andrews singing “A Spoonful of Sugar”.
Another interesting story involves the local neighborhood version of a Watch program. She said that when someone parks in a particularly scandalous way, the neighbors call one another and round up their cars and circle the offending vehicle. Then they call the “policie”. When the police arrive, they have a flat bed truck with a stubby crane on it. They put chains under the car and plunk it onto the truck. This is called the “Tow of Shame”.
Pam also told us about her adventures taking out garbage and recycling. For the first 6 months each time she went for a G&R run, the elderly wife of the building manager would stop her, mumble a greeting and machine gun through a bunch of Czech. Pam would patiently wait for her to end, all the while providing the universal sign of non-understanding, i.e. the rolling of the eyes. When she finished she would tell her in Czech, “Sorry but I do not speak Czech”. This would prompt, louder, slower, Czech, and Pam would repeat her mantra. Finally the lady would say in broken English, “We recycle here”. Tomorrow this entire drama will be repeated unless Pam dresses exactly the same way. Add a different coat or be bring along her daughter, and it’s all recycled yet again.
Another funny event happens when they try and pay with a credit card at a restaurant. Sometimes the waiter when presented with the card says, “Very sorry but our machine is kapute”. Ben and Pam, nervously talk between themselves and tell the waiter that they don’t have any money. They do, but its all part of the game. The waiter, eyes a large as sliver dollars scurries away and returns. “The machine works, we fix”!
Before our guests departed, Ben and Bob worked on fixing the toilet light. Up until now, we’ve composed our 1st and 2nd movements, with our little Mag flashlight clenched between our teeth. With Ben’s encouragement and a pair of pliers provided by our guests, I was able to remove the broken light bulb contact which was broken in the receptacle. This rather brings up the old joke, “How many cyber guys does it take to change a light bulb in Prague”? The answer is: two!
As you can tell our party was a smashing success.
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