Oddly, my last post was about my poor car being damaged. After getting it to look all shiny and new again, I got hit by a drunk on a bike who claimed he couldn’t see me. Hmm… it’s 8 AM, so it’s been a late night for you, and since the amount of alcohol you consumed probably made you blind, of course I understand that you couldn’t see me. Sorry for being inconvenient.
Lots of things have been grinding my gears recently. Like the cinema. Why bother spending time and money on making a super fancy cinema in a massive mall with toilets that have fountains and dressing tables and a chaise out of a Shah Rukh Khan D’Decor ad, when you’re not going to employ anyone to clean the damn place. Oh, and you’re too cheap to buy any decent light bulbs. Us cinema-goers just have to do our business squinting in the 20-Watt mood lighting. And what is with the smell? Did they leave out ventilation too? And then there’s 3D glasses. I have this OCD thing about scrubbing them clean before I use them, but I think I must have missed a spot since my eye is all swollen right now. I read this thing about how 80% of eye troubles in South India come from 3D glasses. Why can’t they have 2D shows of 3D films so we can at least choose.
On the topic of cinemas, who uses those duvets they give out for cold people? Do they even get them cleaned? What if you get one that was used by kids with lice? If you think you’re going to be cold, why not bring your own jumper to the cinema? It’s simple really. And you’ll probably save loads on anti-lice shampoo and scabies cream.
We recently had a meeting with the people in our building about our lack of an association. Apparently there’s some rule that says apartment buildings should have an association… and we don’t. There’s a grumpy old man that lives on the first floor who, 10 years ago, helped build the place. Even though he doesn’t own it anymore, he still believes it’s his building. And he doesn’t want an association cos he can’t be bothered. Not that he has to do much, we just need him to say “oh ok” and that’s it – it’ll be set up. He’s the same grumpy man that refused to unlock a side gate for us while it was raining. It wasn’t his gate either, it was the passage leading to our car that he just didn’t want opened because it made him grumpy! We tried being nice and said please many times, and even said we’d keep it locked as long as we could get through to our car when we needed to, but he wouldn’t budge. The husband then got pissed and one thing led to another, and hey presto! Long story short, Grumpy shouted at some cops, and they got pissed off too and sent him a court order to get the gate permanently left open, or he’d be in big trouble. So after he told everyone we are horrible people for having disturbed his peace, he unlocked the damn thing and stopped being an idiot. Pah, what a pain.
So anyway, this association nonsense is pointless really, since we being under a year old in the building hardly have any say. The older ladies seem to be in control. Well, I’m glad it’s not me! Setting up bank accounts and keeping track of maintenance cheques seems tedious. I can hardly sort my own banking out, and I won’t even start about tax. Why is it so complicated!
On another note, and a good one, I want a new car. Marco is great, and will probably go off to Kerala if I find a car that I like. I’m thinking SUV, since that’s the new cool thing. But I don’t know whether it’s just going to be to massive for me to handle in Chennai traffic. Plus there’s the whole automatic vs. manual thing that I can’t decide between. Automatic would help my legs last, but manual would mean I could get a driver whenever I want and not worry about having to teach him how to drive an automatic. That seems to be the winner here…
Right, enough complaining.