BOGDAN
The cell phones I get at Walmart don't last long but getting them replaced is always a treat. Another one gave out on me last week so I drove over to visit Bogdan, the phone guy at the Walmart in Simi Valley. He works in the electronics department from 11 am to 7 pm and is a dead ringer for the Romanian-born poet Andrei Codrescu. His English is perfectly fine but it's delivered with that truncated baltic meter that omits nonessential words and puts some of the remaining words in surprising places. When I showed up and found him busy with a customer, although there were other people working there, I waited until he was freed up. When he finished with the other customer, I walked up to him, handed him the phone and said, "It won't hold a charge." Bogdan calmly looked it over, pressed a few buttons and then handed it back to me. He asked, "How long have you had phone?" I said, "A year......maybe less." He said, "Probably battery."