We sort of coast along for a while, sticking to a routine. We know we're not going to live in England for the rest of our lives, which does offer us a higher level of stamina for the things that bother us here. But once in a while, a proverbial piece of straw lands on the camel's back and we go on a massive rant. I haven't been on one in quite some time, though I must say I'm beyond fed up with the phlegmy cough I've had since mid-August (probably due to the copious amount of mold spores flying around in the air here). The nutritional healing book we have says that if you live in a cold, damp environment (ahem... England), you may need to move. No kidding.
Anyway, one of those pieces of straw landed on K's camel this evening. You see, it looks like the high-speed spin cycle capabilities of our washer has once again failed. As you know, this was not working when we moved into this apartment in February and it took over a month for the feeble efforts of the management company to have it fixed. A period of time that many of our British friends told us was "normal". Now a little less than 7 months later, it seems to be broken again. K just hauled out a sopping wet load of laundry that she had tried to spin dry several times since lunch today. This launched her into an uncharacteristic extended rant that even I am impressed by. I urged her to write a blog entry about it, but she didn't want to because she has already written about this very thing before. However, her rant inspired me to sit down at the dusty, old keyboard for a cathartic release in the form of...
A WISH LIST
To Live in a place where:
*it is normal to have a washer and a TUMBLE DRYER, preferably in a LAUNDRY ROOM -- not in the kitchen. And therefore, a place where one does not have to hang up damp clothing in the living room next to the couch every single day of the year. Or iron your bedsheets before you put them on the bed because they're crunchy from not getting tumble dried. The washing machine is something K uses every single day because only 3 or 4 things fit in it at one time. It is actually a good thing that the washer is so fricking small because the drying rack will only hold so many pairs of pants.
*you wouldn't be surprised to find a telephone socket in MORE THAN ONE room in a house or apartment (not just in the kitchen). And therefore, you do not have to run extension cables all over the damn place so you can put your wireless router in a good spot.
*there is a TV jack in MORE THAN ONE room so that you have more options for where you put your television.
*the plumbing and heating pipes are not externally mounted to the walls inside the house.
*there aren't pipes sticking out of the outside wall. Ours is currently dripping for some strange reason, even when our heating isn't on. This prompted one of the old farts from downstairs to ring our doorbell at 9:10 this morning (getting us out of bed on a Saturday when he's probably been up since 5 am!) to tell us about it. He said we need to take care of it so the wall "does not get wet". God forbid the exterior of the building would get wet! Is it ever not wet anyway? Not sure what he would suggest we do when it rains.
*you don't have to call a company six or seven times to get them to do what they need to do (for example, getting a contractor to come out and fix the washer).
*it isn't 90-95% humidity ALL THE TIME. People shouldn't live in this kind of environment! And it sure as hell doesn't help when you have to drape wet clothes all over the place.
*it's not "normal" for the north wall of a building to cultivate mold on the inside walls.
*the garages are big enough to fit a normal size car into and also big enough that once you park the car, you can actually get out of it even if you aren't a spider monkey.
*where you aren't being watched all the time by a building full of persnickety old pensioners who want to make sure you're not breaking a rule (such as parking outside, feeding the squirrels, or hanging laundry on the balcony).
*a kitchen has an extractor fan that is more than just decorative and actually blows the air OUTSIDE the building. Every apartment we've lived in has had an extractor fan that sucks the smoke, etc. through a "filter" and then blows it back in the kitchen! Useless! Absolutely useless!
*the postal service does not go on strike over pay disputes for the 100th time in the past few months.
*you don't have to turn on the central heating in order to get hot water for a shower.
*the water pressure is more than a vapid drip which even has trouble falling downwards with gravity.
*people don't park on an already-very-narrow-road, forcing traffic to go into the oncoming lane in order to continue.
*it is not virtually impossible to fire someone who turns up late all the time and is not pulling their weight in the job.
*it's not a normal occurrence to step over a pile of vomit on the sidewalk (that's right
sidewalk, not "pavement") because the entire population seems to view getting drunk as a hobby.
*you can get more than 2 or 3 ice cubes in a drink. Well, actually, you would consider yourself lucky to get 2 or 3 ice cubes in a drink.
*people actually take a little pride in their work.
*there aren't CCTV or speed cameras EVERYWHERE.
*it's not so normal to get such poor workmanship in construction, interior finishings, and food preparation. It's sad when K's favorite restaurant is Subway.
*cracks appearing in every wall in your apartment while you are away on holiday is not met with any more than a shrug and a comment about "didn't you leave a window open?"
PS - We are very aware that there are millions of people in the world who live in much worse conditions than this (and that's definitely understating it), but in our egocentric American way, we have higher expectations for an advanced society in the Western world. And we're also very aware that we are incredibly gauche for complaining so much about a country to which we are merely guests and from which we will both take away advanced degrees and some excellent work experience. We also want to say that we have had the good fortune to meet several Brits who do work hard, don't get drunk all the time and may be be offended by this. Well, sorry, we're tired of holding our tongue and trying to think positively.
