Broken Telephone (No Pun Intended)

My cell phone ran out of minutes the other morning, as it sometimes does, so I planned to go to the store after work to buy one of those little pieces of paper with a number on it that you call to add more minutes. At the end of the day, while I was waiting for the car back to the residence, I thought it might be a good idea to ask someone to write down what I needed for me so I would have an easier time in the shop. Juliette (who speaks a small amount of English) was sitting there, so I asked her. After gesturing and trying to explain a few times, I thought she understood because she started to write something down for me. She decided to double check on her computer, typed in some characters and asked me if that was what I meant: "You need to repair your phone?"

I then tried to explain again. She turned to Alice (who speaks a different small amount of English). She nodded vigorously as though she understood and told Juliette some buttons to push on my phone. I got confused here because there is no way to add minutes from my phone since I have never given them a credit card number, but I though maybe there was a code she needed. Juliette seemed to get a bit frustrated and passed the phone to Alice who continued to attempt the proceedure.

After a couple minutes Alice turned to me triumphantly and told me exactly how much each call I makes costs me if I am in Beijing or Huairou. Apparently they hadn't understood...I tried one more time and she said, "oh! Just give your phone and money to Johnson and he will do it on his computer. Why didn't you say that in the first place?"

Now that was a real game of broken telephone!