And the moral of the story is...

Seven months in Buenos Aires and I am still learning the tricks of the trade. Fortunately, yesterday I learned an important lesson by example and not through personal experience.

The lesson learned: never help a little old man (viejito) into his building unless you are absolutely positive of your exit strategy.

Last night I went to a pub quiz/intercambio and afterwards I was going to meet Amy and Lisa (her friend visiting from NY) at a neighboring bar. I left the pub quiz with a friend, Roger, from Australia- a real character, think Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High- and while we were walking to meet Amy, we heard frantic knocking on a door. When we turned to look, we saw two people trying to get a passerby’s attention. We approached them and they begin to explain in really bad Spanish that they needed help getting out of the building. I told them that I spoke English and they explained that they had helped an old man into the building and on to the elevator and when they went to leave the building they realized that they could not get out without a KEY!! This is extremely common in BsAs, for security reasons, you have to use a key to unlock the door in order to exit. Unfortunately, these two turistas did not know this tidbit of information and they found themselves trapped in the vestibule between two locked doors! It was a guy and a girl from England and the girl seemed to be on the brink of a full blown panic attack. They asked us to ring some bells to see if a neighbor would come down and let them out. Well, without hesitation, Roger begins to ring as many bells as possible in order to solicit some help. However, no one is willing to come down and help these two people leave, because I am sure they all thought this was a complete scam. I have to say, I can sympathize, I don't know if I would be running down to let a stranger in my building, especially one with some strange foreign accent.

Instead, I stopped an Argentine and asked for his help. He rang for the doorman, but of course there was no answer. He then had a very good idea of ringing the bells of those who lived on the first floor so that they would not have to go very far to help the trapped turistas. Well, they didn’t want to help either. The Argentine then went to get a police officer. The policeman came and assessed the situation, but he too realized there was little that could be done. The kind Argentine took off, almost in a light jog, so I decided to follow his lead. I motioned to Roger to let's get going and of course, he had to take a quick snapshot before we too left the scene. (I'll try to have him email it to me for viewing pleasure)

As we were walking away, I asked Roger what he thought the moral of the story was and he looked at me, obviously perplexed by the question, and said: “What? Never help old people into their building.” Exactly. So with that said, I would like to apologize in advance to the viejitos of Buenos Aires, I will not be helping you into your building anytime soon…

P.S. Don’t worry, I walked pass the building this morning and the turistas had been freed.