Wire is not a mobile

The a/c installer had finally come to finish his job--after 2 weeks of being MIA--and he was again refusing to finish the work because he didn't have enough wire. Not only that, but he was also insisting that it wasn't his work, but an electrician's.
I knew, though, that I had the wire he needed. Somewhere. It's hard to keep track of things when so many other people move them around.
Anyhow, I asked where the wire was. The carpenter--who can't seem to understand a word I say, no matter what language--believed I was looking for my mobile phone. So he had the other six men in the house at that time scrambling all over in search of "madame ji's" mobile. Until finally one of them understood I was looking for the wire for the a/c.
Then it was funny. "Mobile," they all laughed.
No: wire.
Ayah.