Lies they tell us about Europe - installment 4

In honor of yesterday's 65th anniversary of V-E Day, we offer another installment of "Lies they tell us about Europe."

Be careful calling from Europe. It's very expensive!

Lie. As told by Ma Bell. It's cheap to call from Europe to the States. If, of course, you think that totally free qualifies as cheap. With Belgacom (the former state monopoly and still biggest telecomms provider in Belgium), you can pay a one-time fee of €5 and call any one foreign country of your choice for free on nights, weekends, and Belgian holidays up to a couple thousand minutes a month. Even if you call outside these hours, each call, no matter how long it lasts, is one euro. Even before such deals, it was cheap. In 1998 Rita and I made a series of transatlantic business calls from France--using a hotel phone no less!--and it worked out to a couple of bucks. So forget the rumors. It's cheap.

Unless of course we've never called you from over here. Then it's prohibitively expensive. So don't expect to hear from us anytime soon.