The homeless travels have now landed me in Diego; my regional capital. Carelessly walking to my usual internet café, I meandered inside a few places advertising excursions. Out of curiosity, I went in to find out how much it costs to get to Zambia. One place tells me that you cannot get there from Madagascar. The next place recommends going through Bangkok. Seriously, they are sending me to another continent just to get across the Mozambique Channel. Unbothered, I continue into the internet café to email the PC travel agent. Immediately, I see a fellow PCV and make fun of her for being on display and the token white girl doing visual advertising for the place. It seems she has picked the only computer in the middle of the room facing the door. If only I had been so smart!
I check out a few computers but they were not on so I ended up settling on one in the back. I sit down for a few minutes but the lady working does not see me or attempt to start my internet connection. Therefore, I go up to the front and she finally acknowledges me and gives me the nod. I wander back to my seat tripping over a big wood stopper and plunge my way into my seat while plugging in the jump drive. Suddenly, I smell something horrible, worse than burning trash, maybe during electronics! My eyes are wandering the room to identify the source when to much dismay they land on my jump drive which is now on fire and smoking. I immediately grab the hot metal and pull it out but not before a big hole has been burned in my plastic casing and of course demolishing all the important electronic pieces.
I grab the lady working and show her the jump drive lying nearly demolished on the floor. Even though it is still hot, she examines it and attempts to put it back together. Even if her futile attempts would put all the pieces together, the device would never work again. This is then followed by hundreds of questions about why my jump drive destroyed their computer. I explain to her that I have used the thing in various computers and nothing even close to this has happened before. It is the computer that malfunctioned rather than my jump drive that caused this. Next, she pulls a new jump drive out and slides it into the guilty port. Of course it does not work either. She concludes her investigation by saying she is really sorry. I demand a new jump drive and declare a stakeout until I can at least speak with the owner. After an hour of staring into her face waiting, the phone rings and the owner starts yelling at me for destroying his computer. Twenty minutes later, all that has been accomplished through this “dispute” is that he will not give me a new jump drive but through his generosity will give me a great deal on one with ¼ of the capacity my old one had.
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