Odd.
Canadians make the most unusual purchases.
- HER: I finally got myself an IBM laptop for 20,000 yen!
- ME: That’s great! Let me check it out.
- HER: You can’t right now.
- ME: Did you leave it at home?
- HER: No, it is here in my bag.
- ME: …..
- HER: It doesn’t work.
- ME: *Tilts head in that cute, confused puppy dog way* Doesn’t work?
- HER: It needs a new battery and the power supply is broken. It is going to cost me about 35,000 to 40,000 yen to have it repaired.
- ME: But, but it doesn’t work.
- HER: I know, but it was cheap.
- ME: I see.
That is what I call a Canadian Purchase.
- Canadian Purchase:
- an item purchased based on price instead of usability.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of such a thing:
I have a Canadian friend who purchased a Gateway notebook in 1998, new from the store, and it had the odd condition of overheating and forgetting that there was a hard drive installed. His solution was to place the laptop in a refrigerator and then keep working. And he was proud of it and that he had paid $799 CDN for it.
It’s not quite the same as your example, but the pride based on price instead of usability was certainly present.
I guess the Canadians are right…they are nothing like us.