Aaron and Karen are noto­ri­ous for their inabil­ity to end a phone call within the first fif­teen min­utes of pick­ing up. This isn’t always their fault, of course, because most of the time it’s the peo­ple at the other end who per­sist in stay­ing on the line. Sometimes I’ll pre­tend that it’s a wrong num­ber when we’re hang­ing out so that they won’t be dis­turbed. Unfortunately, this time, the per­son was per­sis­tent. It ended up being a rude char­ity worker.

My Chinese has a ter­ri­ble Western accent, bad enough for me to be able to rec­og­nize it and cringe. Normally, I’m not so bad, but I was def­i­nitely rusty and caught off-guard.