Life is so easy now, here in the future that there are no longer any problems. That’s nice isn’t it?
What we have instead are challenges. This is a challenge, that is challenging, this interesting individual has challenging behaviour, a challenge is a chance to develop our skills.
Has everyone forgotten what happened to a space shuttle called Challenger?
So far January round here has been nothing but challenges, which, of course are not disasters, and have only been occasioned by the challenging behaviour of the OH, which is a wonderful opportunity for me to develop my patience.
I’m sure it’s not challenging for you to recall (if it is scroll down to Hot Stuff) that the OH took the oven door to bits to clean it ‘properly’ – as in factory refit, contrary to the manufacturer’s destructions.
So off we went together to the electrical retailers to look at ovens. Having agreed on an oven and agreed that it was too much to fork, casserole and oven mit out for in January, we departed. Only for the OH to go back, on a whim, in his car alone, the following day and buy an induction hob.
I would have been in the kitchen aghast had my intestines not started playing up. I find that while I’m alright with challenges my intestines and my psoriasis are not.
Were the weather better, and, as soon as it is, I shall be out in the garden whacking my block of stone with a hammer and chisel. After the Uffizi the inspiration is probably Andromeda, chained to a rock in her vest, although the raison d’etre will be to stop frustration building up with a hammer and chisel.
The OH contacted a friend of his who has a proper job as a fireman and another job as an electrician.
If you contact an electrical company they will tell you for certain when they can come. Make an appointment even. If it’s a pal, they come and have a look and a chat and think about what it will entail and come for another look and…
…in the end I spoke to the friend on the phone and screwed him down to a day.
This was not me being difficult, this was me, with a Miniatura in the middle of March, having a set, unalterable number of weeks to pour my new moulds and do the work.
You cannot hurry porcelain. You cannot stand by castings and shout ‘dry!’ at them, neither can you stand by the kiln yelling either ‘cook’ or ‘cool’. Well you can if you are slightly to the left of insane but it won’t do you any good.
So I rearranged my schedule to allow time for the fitting of a hob I didn’t want and hadn’t asked for.
Immediately the OH announced five days before the arrival of the electrical friend that he would clear all my slip, my stuff and my kilns and lock them in his shed.
So, having heard the phrase ‘over my dead body and yours if you touch my stuff’ he then proceeded, challengingly, to nag me every half hour about when I was going to do it.
At this juncture the new washing machine helpfully flooded the floor.
Last June there was a similar flood, which after many interesting challenges and opportunities for growth, was resolved by a plumber but in the middle of which a new washing machine was removed with all the paperwork neatly tucked into the plastic bag in the drum and replaced by a replacement washing machine without paperwork.
Any reader with a good memory, or the ability to scroll down will know that I am usually very good with paperwork and able to produce fourteen year old receipts with a flourish. For this expensive washing machine, being unable to comply had hindered me in registering the guarantee, which I had failed to do.
Now paddling, I thought it was maybe time to do so.
Companies find customer behaviour so challenging they feel constrained to speed read a good fifteen minutes of legal utterances more back-covering than a cashmere boyfriend cardigan.
Having used this challenging phone time to develop my ability to withstand garbled stupidity whilst sounding neither annoyed or patronising, I managed successfully to avoid paying a mere £25 monthly for the next ten years, instead acquiescing to the £160 call out fee which would be levied if the fault were to be discovered to be due to transgressions on behalf of the washing machine holder in the form of pulling at the door, scrabbling at the seal, kicking the drum or door, leaving knives and sharp objects in pockets…
At the point of this particular challenge I kept silent.
For lo, just a couple of days previously the OH had been to the docs to fetch his new hearing aids. The hearing aids came with a little, pocket-sized container of teeny tiny batteries.
‘Have you seen my hearing aid batteries? They were in the pocket of my jeans, the ones drying on the radiator but they are not there now. Also there was £1.50 in the pocket. Have you got that. At all?’
A challenging question I think you’ll agree.
Here is another question: Is a slew of tiny batteries accompanied by £1.50 in coins enough to cause a washing machine to break down in floods of tears?
So I agreed to everything, and, having mopped up, put the washing machine back on to wash the mop cloths and to see what challenging occurrence would occur next.
For which you will have to scroll down. The OH just shouted upstairs that the friend was finished (coating the house in brick dust) and would I come down to watch the OH boil water on the new hob, now!
So I hit publish by mistake and rushed downstairs.
Do you remember one part of the Star Wars films in which action takes place on a planet coated in white dust?
As I reached the last stair, for lo! I had been transported to a galaxy far far away, where everything makes one see red.
‘You’ll have to clean this up,’ remarked the OH. Seeing my face he back tracked. ‘Or I will. Someone will.’
More later this evening, as long as the computer is not tied up again (another story, another challenge, anon my friend, anon.).
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