Ben on a hot tin roof
2010-01-24 | Filed Under Amusing, Reminiscing |
I fondly remember when I first moved out of my parents’ place. It was an exciting time: I could eat nothing but frozen pizzas, drink nothing but beer, and spend my entire weekend doing nothing but watch TV on the couch, and nobody could interfere.
However, the first step when moving into your own place is to actually find and rent a flat. Otherwise, moving day arrives and the guy with the van asks: “Okay, where does all this stuff need to be shipped to?”, and you realise that you have absolutely no idea.
And so, I scanned the newspapers and online ads, and ended up going to see just a single flat that sounded promising. I met with the landlord, who was a very nice guy, and he showed me around the small apartment that I hoped would become my new home. I tried to make a good impression to stand out from all the other applicants, and as we parted ways, he said he’d give me a quick call to let me know whether I could have the flat or not.
Flash forward to a couple days later. I was busy at work when my mobile phone rang. “Gable speaking”, the person at the other end of the line said. And this is when it happened: my most embarrassing misunderstanding to date.
It was my potential landlord on the phone, Mr Gable. As it turns out, he was calling to offer me the flat. However, while being shown around his flat, I was so preoccupied with making a good impression that I hadn’t noticed or remembered what his name was. I just thought of him as “That dude who owns the flat I’d like to live in.” And so it never even occurred to me that the person I was speaking to was my potential landlord.
Unfortunately, an old mate of mine from school days is also called Gable. So naturally, he was the first person who sprung to mind when I heard the name. I deduced that he had heard I was moving to Bavaria, and wanted to wish me luck, or say good riddance, or something along those lines. As was customary at the time, I greeted him by enthusiastically insulting him: “Gable, you old nutter, how are you? Still as thick as two planks? I’m trying to work here, you’d better have a good reason for interrupting me, you old fart.”
To Mr Gable’s credit, he didn’t hang up then and there. “I’m, uh, calling about… the, uh, flat.” I turned a shade of red that could have lit up all of Amsterdam’s red light district. I apologised profusely, telling him that I had mistaken a 55-year-old man in a suit for a 19-year-old beer buddy. To my never-ending surprise, he laughed it off, and I moved into his flat two weeks later. Which just goes to show… erm, something.
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