19. November 2006
And there it was again. Those of us who had hoped winter would take it a bit easy on us this year after last years overkill just got very disappointed. At first I tried denying it, which worked a treat until I had to go outside and then try to slowly negotiate my car on summer tyres up the valley to teach and back again. As I had already had my dad rescue me from running out of petrol that same afternoon I did not think calling him to pull me out of a ditch would be a very good idea.
My attempt to deny the inevitable –I had even read the tabloid’s four page coverage of here-comes-the-first-snow at the weekend – then led to me spending Tuesday night in a garage full of eastern European men with power tools, waiting for them to sort me out. Or my car anyway. For a Tuesday night I suppose you could say it was above averagely exciting. Turned out their prejudice towards blondes was as strongly developed as mine is towards Polish, as they all stopped to watch me drive my car onto the lifty-thing obviously expecting me to hash it up. Cheeky bastards, I might be blond but I can still drive a car –most of the time anyway. Then again they are probably not all retarded assholes who gatecrash your parties wearing shorts. (had some rather unpleasant and contact seeking middle aged polish neighbors at one point –surly it can’t be normal to always open the door wearing just washed out white underpants, even in Poland.)
I know it’s not politically correct to pay some 24 hour garage full of foreign workers to change my tyres and that any feminist would be appalled that I don’t get down and do it myself in between chopping wood, watching football and burning my bras –or whatever it is men do in their spare time. But I am just more into efficiency than feminism really. It does not make sense that I spend hours doing something someone else can do in less than 10 minutes. It’s called outsourcing. Feminism or not, I have done these kinds of calculations in my ECON lectures and it is just a downright waste of resources for me to do it. To improve efficiency even more I promise I will do it well ahead of the first snow next year and not end up queuing for hours because I am going at the same time as the rest of the world.
It is much better that I spend my time teaching for instance. Mind you with temperatures well below freezing it gets rather painful in the long run and a garage might actually be preferable. Although having taken the art of layering my clothes to a new level last year it was still bloody freezing. One particularly cold evening I came home after five hours of teaching I said to my housemates:
“It was so cold tonight I rode a pony!”
First there was no response to this and I assumed they were too engrossed in the commercials on TV to even have heard me. But then I noticed my cousin Phil was looking at me with a spaced out look on his face. When he actually spoke he might as well have been out there -in space that is.
“What do you mean? Because it’s warmer?”
“What do you mean warmer?” I was seriously struggling to follow him now.
“Er, I mean they are closer to the ground than horses aren’t they? So must be warmer yeah?”
“Are you being serious?” I was laughing out loud now, despite my frozen limbs actually hurting now that they were starting to defrost.
“I was just thinking that too,” said my sister supportively while suppressing a giggle.
“Well I don’t know shit about horses do I,” Phil was trying to defend his somewhat twisted logic.
“Well what I meant was that it was so cold I even got on a pony” I was confident this would clarify it.
“And?” they were both looking encouragingly at me now, waiting for me to reveal some sort of universal logic explanation that they had missed.
“It is not like I would have got on this stupid old pony otherwise is it?”
“Why not?”
“Because I am six foot tall and the damned thing is far too small for me, stiff as a board and does everything it can to get me off. Falling off kids ponies is not a great career move you know”
“You fell off it,” my sister could hardly speak now through the giggles and Phil was looking like I was about to make his week.
“Of course not you rude bastards, I wouldn’t fall off a pony!”
I suppose being outside the horsey bubble it is not obvious that when everything else fails when you are teaching, all you can do is get on the bloody thing, pony or not. Whether it is because the rider is being particularly incompetent, the animal is being down right rude or you are about to freeze to death from standing still for hours. Last winter I had to stop locking my car because I got so cold I did not manage to unlock it again at the end of the night, which was a real pain in the ass. But I am proud to say that I have introduced a new saying –well at least in the family so far. At last family gathering my dad’s cousin informed me that the sea was so cold she could have ridden a pony. So quite proud of that, although not sure that is quite the correct way of using it…
And there it was again. Those of us who had hoped winter would take it a bit easy on us this year after last years overkill just got very disappointed. At first I tried denying it, which worked a treat until I had to go outside and then try to slowly negotiate my car on summer tyres up the valley to teach and back again. As I had already had my dad rescue me from running out of petrol that same afternoon I did not think calling him to pull me out of a ditch would be a very good idea.
My attempt to deny the inevitable –I had even read the tabloid’s four page coverage of here-comes-the-first-snow at the weekend – then led to me spending Tuesday night in a garage full of eastern European men with power tools, waiting for them to sort me out. Or my car anyway. For a Tuesday night I suppose you could say it was above averagely exciting. Turned out their prejudice towards blondes was as strongly developed as mine is towards Polish, as they all stopped to watch me drive my car onto the lifty-thing obviously expecting me to hash it up. Cheeky bastards, I might be blond but I can still drive a car –most of the time anyway. Then again they are probably not all retarded assholes who gatecrash your parties wearing shorts. (had some rather unpleasant and contact seeking middle aged polish neighbors at one point –surly it can’t be normal to always open the door wearing just washed out white underpants, even in Poland.)
I know it’s not politically correct to pay some 24 hour garage full of foreign workers to change my tyres and that any feminist would be appalled that I don’t get down and do it myself in between chopping wood, watching football and burning my bras –or whatever it is men do in their spare time. But I am just more into efficiency than feminism really. It does not make sense that I spend hours doing something someone else can do in less than 10 minutes. It’s called outsourcing. Feminism or not, I have done these kinds of calculations in my ECON lectures and it is just a downright waste of resources for me to do it. To improve efficiency even more I promise I will do it well ahead of the first snow next year and not end up queuing for hours because I am going at the same time as the rest of the world.
It is much better that I spend my time teaching for instance. Mind you with temperatures well below freezing it gets rather painful in the long run and a garage might actually be preferable. Although having taken the art of layering my clothes to a new level last year it was still bloody freezing. One particularly cold evening I came home after five hours of teaching I said to my housemates:
“It was so cold tonight I rode a pony!”
First there was no response to this and I assumed they were too engrossed in the commercials on TV to even have heard me. But then I noticed my cousin Phil was looking at me with a spaced out look on his face. When he actually spoke he might as well have been out there -in space that is.
“What do you mean? Because it’s warmer?”
“What do you mean warmer?” I was seriously struggling to follow him now.
“Er, I mean they are closer to the ground than horses aren’t they? So must be warmer yeah?”
“Are you being serious?” I was laughing out loud now, despite my frozen limbs actually hurting now that they were starting to defrost.
“I was just thinking that too,” said my sister supportively while suppressing a giggle.
“Well I don’t know shit about horses do I,” Phil was trying to defend his somewhat twisted logic.
“Well what I meant was that it was so cold I even got on a pony” I was confident this would clarify it.
“And?” they were both looking encouragingly at me now, waiting for me to reveal some sort of universal logic explanation that they had missed.
“It is not like I would have got on this stupid old pony otherwise is it?”
“Why not?”
“Because I am six foot tall and the damned thing is far too small for me, stiff as a board and does everything it can to get me off. Falling off kids ponies is not a great career move you know”
“You fell off it,” my sister could hardly speak now through the giggles and Phil was looking like I was about to make his week.
“Of course not you rude bastards, I wouldn’t fall off a pony!”
I suppose being outside the horsey bubble it is not obvious that when everything else fails when you are teaching, all you can do is get on the bloody thing, pony or not. Whether it is because the rider is being particularly incompetent, the animal is being down right rude or you are about to freeze to death from standing still for hours. Last winter I had to stop locking my car because I got so cold I did not manage to unlock it again at the end of the night, which was a real pain in the ass. But I am proud to say that I have introduced a new saying –well at least in the family so far. At last family gathering my dad’s cousin informed me that the sea was so cold she could have ridden a pony. So quite proud of that, although not sure that is quite the correct way of using it…
1 comment:
Thanks for the information about the winter tyres...
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