Tweet
Note - Please do not take this post has anything but a little piece of dark humour - I mean no disrespect to individuals with strong religious beliefs.
Sometimes its only the humour which stops me from exploding in frustrating situations.
For the past month a miscommunication between my landlord and the agency renting his small one roomed apartment to me has resulted in neither of them paying the electricity bill which caused my 'smart' meter in the street to restrict my electrical consumption to a minimal power supply sufficient only to run my refrigerator, the TV and my laptop, the hot water pump and a couple of lamps, but nothing else - no cooking grill, no vacuum cleaner, no clothes iron and most importantly, no scroll saw.
After 4 weeks of battling severe bureaucratic nonsense to try get my power supply back up to its full potential I thought that yesterday my problems were finally solved. Imagine my surprise and frustration when last night, after a really long day at work, I arrived home to absolutely no power supply at all, no hot water and a very cold apartment with outdoor temperatures forecasted to drop to freezing point overnight!
My first thought after the obligatory swear words was to fire up a burner on the gas hob to give a little warmth to the apartment and then go buy some candles to supplement the LED light from my laptop which would only last a couple of hours at the best. Well the hob turned out to be no go since it works on electronic ignition and not being a smoker I had nothing to light it with. I guess as a ceramist I should carry a shard of flint around with me in my pocket and neaderthal-like strike a spark with it to fire the gas but enough of that. To add to the candles a BIC lighter seemed a better solution.
5 mins later at the small local supermarket, and the only open store around for miles at that time of night, I searched the shelves for candles. Now, you can tell when you are in a predominantly Catholic country when the only candles you can find are votive ones in nice red glass vases! I guess If I'd have wanted to invite someone home to warm my bed for the night I could have bought a 'red light' to place in my window but instead I begged the shop assistant to try to find me something a little more illuminating. Eventually she came back with a large votive candle in an opaque white glass emblazened with the image of Pope John Paul. Better that than nothing I bought it, and probably earned a plus point with the assistant for my devotion to a cause. Little did she know that the first thought that crossed my mind on seeing the image of the late pontiff bowed over his staff owed more to a Brit sense of black humour and a twinge of irreverance. Now honestly, in my situation would you have thought of anything different?
The upside to this situation is that finally this morning full power was returned to my apartment. Just one slight problem, now the hot water boiler won't fire up! Maybe I should call in at the church tonight and borrow a little holy water to sprinkle on it!
Life situations like this often remind me of a saying an elderly but wise co-worker said to me very many years ago....
Lad... If things don't stay as they are, they'll probably change!
Sometimes its only the humour which stops me from exploding in frustrating situations.
For the past month a miscommunication between my landlord and the agency renting his small one roomed apartment to me has resulted in neither of them paying the electricity bill which caused my 'smart' meter in the street to restrict my electrical consumption to a minimal power supply sufficient only to run my refrigerator, the TV and my laptop, the hot water pump and a couple of lamps, but nothing else - no cooking grill, no vacuum cleaner, no clothes iron and most importantly, no scroll saw.
After 4 weeks of battling severe bureaucratic nonsense to try get my power supply back up to its full potential I thought that yesterday my problems were finally solved. Imagine my surprise and frustration when last night, after a really long day at work, I arrived home to absolutely no power supply at all, no hot water and a very cold apartment with outdoor temperatures forecasted to drop to freezing point overnight!
My first thought after the obligatory swear words was to fire up a burner on the gas hob to give a little warmth to the apartment and then go buy some candles to supplement the LED light from my laptop which would only last a couple of hours at the best. Well the hob turned out to be no go since it works on electronic ignition and not being a smoker I had nothing to light it with. I guess as a ceramist I should carry a shard of flint around with me in my pocket and neaderthal-like strike a spark with it to fire the gas but enough of that. To add to the candles a BIC lighter seemed a better solution.
5 mins later at the small local supermarket, and the only open store around for miles at that time of night, I searched the shelves for candles. Now, you can tell when you are in a predominantly Catholic country when the only candles you can find are votive ones in nice red glass vases! I guess If I'd have wanted to invite someone home to warm my bed for the night I could have bought a 'red light' to place in my window but instead I begged the shop assistant to try to find me something a little more illuminating. Eventually she came back with a large votive candle in an opaque white glass emblazened with the image of Pope John Paul. Better that than nothing I bought it, and probably earned a plus point with the assistant for my devotion to a cause. Little did she know that the first thought that crossed my mind on seeing the image of the late pontiff bowed over his staff owed more to a Brit sense of black humour and a twinge of irreverance. Now honestly, in my situation would you have thought of anything different?
The upside to this situation is that finally this morning full power was returned to my apartment. Just one slight problem, now the hot water boiler won't fire up! Maybe I should call in at the church tonight and borrow a little holy water to sprinkle on it!
Life situations like this often remind me of a saying an elderly but wise co-worker said to me very many years ago....
Lad... If things don't stay as they are, they'll probably change!
Hey Jim, we loose our power here on the Island from time to time and we keep battery lights close by.
Comment