Cambridge Chronicles: my knight by the gutter

Chatting with mother, trying not to explode under the pressure of finals here, attempting to balance backpack, laptop in hand, dinner (and by dinner, i mean a cheap nutella pastry. mmmm) and the phone---when it suddenly slides out of my hands, and gets thrown by my knee, and ultimately kicked by my own foot, straight through the little holes in this devilish contraption on the side of the road.

can someone explain why they make the holes JUST big enough for a cell phone to fall straight through?!

Here I am, squatting by the side of the road, starring at my poor little phone through the stupid slits in this grate. There it is--i can see it clearly--four feet down, sitting in a pile of dirt, surrounded by candy wrappers and old cigarettes.

Very nice english lady, stopped and joined me in my awkward squat and said in her lovely thick british accent, "do you need some help?"



"Oh yes, thank you!"

We attempted to lift the gutter cover, but it didn't budge.

"Here, love!" she had an idea, "I work at the sweet shop, and we sell mgthhnsd, let me go grab one, and we can pry it open!"

I've discovered here, if one is listening to an accent, it's very difficult to catch every word. Pretty much as a rule, I miss one or two words in any given dialogue... But i've learned to learned to nod at approximately the right times. (the worst is when it's a question, and they expect an answer from you... then it's a bit trickier... but luckily, I knew that particular missing word was unimportant in the context of my reaction)

"ok great thank you!" I smiled, relieved. And sat on the curb, looking longingly at the gutter.

Then a very nice Brazilian (i'm assuming Brazilian) man, crossed the street, and asked if I needed help. We (but mostly his big arm muscles) pried open the metal cage covering the gutter.

"Zhere huou arrrr" ("there you are," for those of us who don't speak with a sexy brazilian accent) and he gestured to the gaping black hole.

I laid down flat, like human road kill on the side of the road and reached into this dirt hole, with the tips of my fingers grabbed my phone.

I sat down in relief. and said thank you about a hundred times to the sexy Good-Samaritan brazilian tourist, and put my phone back together. Just then a man came looking for me, "did you need help reaching your phone? Mary just sent me out here"

"oh thank you! but I actually already got it! A nice man helped me open the..."point to metal cage thing covering the gutter (if that thing has a name, I don't know it.) and the international language of pointing worked quite well.  He nodded:





"Well, I'm glad.

But I came prepared, I brought my sword"

Sure enough, he reaches for his belt loop, and whips out a two-foot, hollow, plastic play-sword full of little candies.

He was going to crowbar that metal gutter-cover---that took four hands and some major muscles to lift---with a toy plastic candy sword!





How sweet!

no pun intended.