my first visit to that place

[KHUDER_SA]

When I arrived in the United States for the first time, which was back in 1986, there was a friend of mine traveling with me

We’ve met some Saudi guys in the airport of the city which was our final destination who were studying there some of them helped us to find an apartment to live in, and they helped us to find furniture as well

One of these guys terrifically loved making troubles to his friends for the sake of fun and he found my little knowledge of English at that time to be a good opportunity for making a heavy joke of me

By the third day of our arrival he invited me to a dinner at one of the good restaurants in downtown Phoenix, Arizona about 10 miles away of Tempe where our apartment was located, I didn’t know that it’s a habit of that guy to trouble his friends when I accepted his invitation and I went with him to that restaurant

We had our dinner and spent sometime having coffee after the dinner, then the guy requested me to excuse him to go to the car to bring his wallet as he forgot it there

I remained seated waiting for him for more than an hour but he didn’t come back, the restaurant has to close by 2 in the morning and I should have left before that time when the time was about 2, I paid the bill and left the restaurant to know that my friend has gone, leaving me alone in a city that I was not familiar with using my little English to communicate with people

Because it was only 3 days for me in the city or rather in the whole country and because I came to that place with my friend I didn’t care of carrying my apartment address with me

I was carrying money but I couldn’t take a taxi as I didn’t know the address of my apartment, the good thing is that the phone number of the apartment was with me and I called my roommate to take the address from him, this dialogue has taken place between me and my roommate:

Hello, this is Mohammed speaking “He answered”
Hello Mohammed, can you give me the address of our apartment? “I asked”
The address? “he wondered”
Yes the address “I replied”
Why do you want the address “he asked’
Well…..then I explained the story to him
God! Are you serious? I can’t believe that “he said”
That’s not to be discussed now I need the address for the taxi driver please “ I said’
I’m afraid to tell you that I don’t know it but I remember the name of the street that’s all I know “he said”
Then I said that’s ok what’s the name of the street? And he gave it to me

As I said, my English was poor at that time, and I wanted to ask one of the restaurant’s staff to call me a taxi, one of the few words that I knew at that time was that they call a taxi “a cab” and they also call a police officer “a cub” there is a slight difference between the pronunciations of these two words.

When I asked the restaurant waiter to call me a taxi I told him, “Would you call me a cub please” instead of saying “a cab”
Why? are you in trouble do you need help? He replied
No thanks I just need a cub “I made the same mistake again” Then he dialed the number for me and gave me the phone handset to talk:

Hello… “I said’
Yes this is Phoenix police station may I help you ‘the other person on the line said”
What? A Police station? Oh! I’m sorry I got a wrong number then I hung up

Then I spoke to the guy of the restaurant why did you call the police station for me, then he said that’s what you requested me to do! Then I said “ No I didn’t, I requested you to call me a taxi, and he said ..oh my God then you needed a cab not a cub

I hope I didn’t bore you with this story….thankyou

[Angel]

Oh my God..!!!

Khuder>> That story cracked me up

So, you called a cop instead of the cab..!!

I hope you've learnt a lesson

and as I percieve.. you went to the states with practically nothing

but mashallah.. your English is very good

You must be a very fast learner

Good luck

[KHUDER_SA]

Hi Angel

First thank you for stopping by this topic and reading it

Secondly it’s my pleasure to have someone like you rates my English level as VERY GOOD and describes me as a fast learner, that’s encourages me to keep on improving myself

To be honest with you, if I’m a fast learner then you are one of the heaviest contributors to my fast learning because I really learned a lot of the topics you posted either here in this forum or in the other forums

It’s true you are much younger than me but differences in ages have nothing to do when it comes to learning

Thank you once again.

[Sami96SA]

Hello Khuder

Interesting and funny situation you were put in. I know lots of similar stories that happened with Arab students at their first week of arrival in the States. It's funny how some words mean differently when they are spoken by a foriegner


What you didn't tell us in the story was why your friend intended to put you in such an awkward position. Did he think it was funny

I wouldn't had it happened with me

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Sami

[KHUDER_SA]

Thank you Sami for your interest to know the rest of the story

in fact I intended to keep it with unclear end to see if there are interests to know the end of it or not and based on that I either complete it or give up talking about it

When I told the taxi driver the name of the street to take me to it, he said ok you want me to take you to Baseline street but which direction of Baseline? west or east? then I got perplexed I didn’t have an answer for that question, then I told him you can drive me the whole street from the extreme west to the extreme east

WOW that will cost you too much “he said’, the street crosses the city from one end to the opposite end which is about 20 miles, what to do this is the only solution I got “I replied’ then he said fine let’s do it

Fortunately, he started the trip of from the western side of the street, which was the closest to my apartment, but before we’ve reached the street we drove around 10 miles from Phoenix to Tempe

As he started driving down the street I’ve seen the 7-11 store which was next to the compound where my apartment was, that was only 2 miles from the point of the street we started the trip at, and I asked him to stop immediately

When I got to the apartment I found my roommate worried about me and he screamed “Thank God you are back safely”, I said I need to call that unwise guy who left me alone there, he tried to calm me down but no way I was in an awful anger, if I saw that guy at that moment I would have killed him

I called him many times at his apartment but nobody was answering, by the next day he didn’t come to school otherwise I would have caught him there; luckily the following two days were the weekend Saturday and Sunday

During the weekend the rest of the group kept trying to convince me to forgive him while he was hiding somewhere

finally they managed to have me forget it and they had him come to apologize for me

When I asked him “why did you do that to me?” he said that’s a sort of help for you, the best way to learn is to get yourself involved in the problem rather than watching it from far “ that’s what he said”, Imagine! In order for us to learn we need to keep searching for problems for ourselves! That’s really a strange attitude I couldn’t comprrhend it

I lectured him on how to deal with others, I gave him a hard time but I think he didn’t listen to me, when he was back home he couldn’t find people to create friendships with, he couldn’t even stay long with his wife who preferred to get divorced of him

Now he is in the States he doesn’t want to come back home

This way of thinking or this type of mentalities has something to do with my other topic in this forum “Learning from one’s own mistakes” if we adopt this stupid logic then we will waste
our lives looking for troubles for ourselves to learn from them

Thank you

[Sami96SA]

Khuder

I enjoyed reading the second part of the story. You have a way of keeping me reading till the last line. I agree with you, people like your friend in the story who cares less about others' feelings are likely to end up being isolated from society basically because they are selfish and irresponsible

I would have done exactly the same if I were you, and taught him a lesson on how to be more considerate with others. It's unfortnate though that some won't realize their behaiviours until it's too late and they're too old to straighten up


I really really enjoyed chatting with you on this one. Thanks


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Sami