The Ground is Missing

Even though it’s been over six years that we’ve lived in Bosnia-Herzegovina, we still find that certain cultural things catch us off guard. It was yet another really hot day in Sarajevo, and Stacy went down to the local electronics store to buy a fan for our apartment. She had already been to 4 or 5 shops earlier that day and everyone was sold out. In one store Stacy finally found a fan, however when she got in the very long line to purchase the fan, there was a lady at the front of the line who was causing quite a fuss concerning her own purchase. Noah was getting very impatient and Stacy couldn’t last any longer. Defeated, she put the fan back and went home.
Later that day, the idea came to go to a local shop where she thought she could find a fan. Victory! She went in and found exactly what she was looking for. She brought it to the cash register to pay for her treasure. When Stacy got up to the salesclerk, he started yelling at a co-worker to come to the the front of the store. Stacy was getting a little worried that she wasn’t going to be able to keep her fan, after all the bad luck she had had that day. The salesclerks were trying to explain to her that this fan comes from another country and that they were going to have to modify it a little. So they took the fan out of the box, grabbed the power cord, took the end, and with some pliers snipped off the grounding pin. Stacy with a blank stare and her jaw dropped asked if this fan was going to work (knowing that the return policy in Bosnia is horrible). They assured her that they’ve done this to many fans and no one has complained. Not sure what to do, Stacy gave them the money and brought her fan home. We assembled it and with some caution plugged it in. The fan seems to be working, but just in case we cleared the outlet of anything flammable.