The free phone he turned down

An older man in a phone shop in Kuwait City is being offered a better phone for nothing.

His contract is up. The new handset costs him no more each month. The young man behind the counter has explained this twice, slowly, and the customer still says no, thank you, the old one is fine. Its screen is cracked across one corner. The battery gives up by lunchtime.

From behind the counter this looks like a man who does not understand a good deal. It is tempting to explain it a third time, a little louder.

I find it more useful to ask what he might be afraid of.

Perhaps it is the photographs. Years of grandchildren live on that cracked phone, and nobody has told him, in a way he believes, that they will survive the move. Perhaps it is the voice notes from an old friend. Perhaps it is simply the ten minutes in which a stranger half his age holds his phone and taps through it while he waits, feeling slow, with a queue behind him.

None of that is on the price list. All of it is bigger than the deal.

Most behaviour that looks irrational from outside makes sense from inside a fear nobody has named. The shopper who will only pay in cash at the door. The parent who will not let a child take the new school bus. The client who asks for the same reassurance in every message.

Arguing with the choice does not help. A better offer does not help either, because the offer was never the obstacle.

The salesman who gets this one right puts the brochure down and says: I will move everything across while you watch, and you keep the old phone in your pocket until you are sure.