The Quarantine Gift

It’s early in the morning and she gets a phone call. She lazily drags herself out of bed and coughs dramatically to clear her throat.

“Hello?” It sounds as if she hasn’t spoken in a few years.

“Good morning! I’m calling from Technomania to inform you that we’re shipping a Samsung tablet to your home. Can I just confirm your address?”

She blinks in hazy confusion, “I didn’t order a tablet.”

“It’s already been paid for. We just need to confirm—”

She hangs up. She’s not fooled by scammers easily, but the call puts her on edge.

The phone rings again. Wow, they’re relentless.

***

A couple of weeks into quarantine, Katarina and I decide to buy our aunt in Serbia a tablet.

See, we were very lucky children. We spent our childhoods growing up in a few different countries: Serbia, the US, Serbia again, and then Canada. So you might assume we had somewhat unstable lives early on. But we didn’t. Most kids are blessed with two sets of grandparents that make them feel grounded. We were blessed with three.

Before you think we’re freaks of nature, I’ll explain. Our dad’s mother had two younger sisters. They lived together in a big house a few blocks away from ours in Kovačica. Our Teta Katka and Teta Era always greeted us with open arms when we showed up at their house, and we laughed countless days away playing dominoes, painting, meditating.

Teta Era was diagnosed with brain cancer when we were young, and Teta Katka dedicated herself to taking care of her sister. Neither of them had children of their own, but it didn’t matter. They loved our dad as their own, and in the same way, they loved us when we came along.

As the daughters of an artist, Teta Katka and Teta Era were both painters themselves. When Teta Era lost the functionality of the right side of her body, she learned to paint with her left hand so she could continue to make art. She taught us the importance of being creative and being resilient. When we visited them and danced for hours, they taught us that home is in the people you love, not the places you go. And when our Teta Era lost her battle with cancer in 2011, Teta Katka taught us how to be brave and how to stay open even when you're in pain.

Now, imagine the most social person you know trapped in quarantine alone. Our aunt owns an old laptop, but she can comfortably toast a piece of bread and put eurokrem on it too while waiting for the next page to load.

So we decide to buy her something to help her feel connected.

We search Serbian tech stores online before selecting a beautiful white Samsung tablet.

***

“It’s a beautiful white Samsung tablet, and it’s already been paid for!” The customer service agent blurts. “Are you sure you don’t want it delivered to you?”

“I didn’t pay for it,” says our aunt into the phone, “So I don’t want it!” She paces her living room, agitated that Technomania has called her yet again.

“The credit card on file says Galat. Perhaps it was a gift?” the agent asks.

Our aunt slaps her palm over her forehead. “Maybe it was my nephew. But he lives in Canada.”

“Go ahead and figure it out and call us back to confirm the order.”

***

“Kati, should I place the order?” I ask.

“Do it!” she says.

I click “potvrdi kupovinu” and make the purchase. We hop around our apartment, trying to figure out the local time in Serbia. 4 AM. We’ll have to wait until morning to let our aunt know about the gift.

Minutes later, I receive an email from Technomania. But it isn’t the typical confirmation email I expected. The email says their staff will call my aunt’s phone number to confirm the order as soon as possible. Oh no.

***

“Oh no, no, no. You told these scammers that I live in Canada?” my dad says, glaring at the choppy image of my aunt on Skype.

“I’m sorry for waking you up.”

My dad rubs his eyes. His first reaction to a phone call from Serbia in the middle of the night is always panic. Did something terrible happen? Though he is relieved to hear everyone is okay, the panic is still coursing through his body.

***

I panic knowing how easily our aunt gets stressed. “We need to call her! Can’t we make a phone call somehow?”

Our Australian cell phone plans, while being extremely economical (go with Boost Mobile if you visit Australia), don’t include Serbia as one of the long distance countries we can call. So the answer to my question is no, we can’t call our aunt to give her a heads-up about the tablet.

We write her a message telling her to call us immediately when she sees it and decide to wait until we see the green icon by our aunt’s name light up on Skype.

***

Opening Skype, our aunt sees she has some unread messages from both me and Katarina, but right now, she’s on a mission. She’ll look at them later.

My aunt and dad begin debating next steps.

“Maybe I should call the police?”

The incredibly irritating chime of another Skype call rings from my aunt’s laptop. Call from Jana Galat.

With bigger concerns on her mind, she clicks “ignore.”

“You said the people who called you were from Technomania?”my dad asks. “ I’m on their website and it seems legit.”

Another irritating ring. Call from Katarina Galat. Ignore.

“But what if it’s--”

Another call from Jana Galat.

“Listen Janko,” my aunt says to my dad. “The kids keep calling me, so I’m going to answer them real quick to tell them I’ll call back later.”

***

“Jana, I’ll call you back later, I have to deal with a situation right now. It looks like someone’s trying to scam me.”

“No!”

“Look, I’ll call you in a bit, I just have to get back onto a call with your dad. It looks like someone’s trying to scam me by telling me that I’m getting a new tablet.”

“But you are getting a new tablet!”

After unprecedented amounts of explaining on our side, the popping of anxiety pills on our aunt’s side, and celebrating with wine and orahovača on both sides, it finally became clear how a suspected scam was actually just a well-intentioned gift.

Afterwards, our aunt called Technomania to thank them for being so persistent.

She explained that yes, she does in fact want the beautiful white Samsung tablet. To which the customer service agent responded with: “Oh I know, it’s already been shipped.”