Monday, October 26, 2009

Rant - House series - Bathrooms

I stood transfixed in the hall way of my new house-in-progress, staring maybe a little slack jawed at the light green vanity sitting there awaiting installation in my decidedly un-green-friendly bathroom.

Pointing like we do at everything here in China, I stammer.

“it’s green!”

My wife can only nod her head as she gives me a sideways look, knowing whats coming next, “I’ll call the lady,” and she’s on the phone, translating for me;

“the lady say’s it’s not green, it’s elephant tooth color.”

“No,” I say from experience “This is not ivory, this is a light, pastel green.”

“ The lady says it's what we picked from the catalogue.”

“The catalogue showed a white cabinet, that’s why we picked it.”

Now I am a light shade of pastel green as I realize this is what we will get. There will be no replacement, apology, discount or explanation.
Ordinarily, I’d be a much brighter shade of red, the color of fury, But I am at the tail end of “decorating” the interior of my house. It’s possible I have burned that light bulb out. Nowadays, the best I can do is point and maybe snort derisively as the workers do not one iota more than they were instructed to do at birth.

Snort “So, if I need to take a crap I should open the shower doors to give me enough room for my knees?”

Snort “Maybe the towel rack will fit if they put it on sideways. Hey’ I was just kidding!”

Come time to settle the bill and the lady is on the phone to my wife, “you’d better pay us in cash,” My wife turns her own favorite shade and exclaims “ Meiya?” ( this means “what”, forcibly) and then a stream of presumed curses followed by a “hmmpf” and a hang up.

SO now we are standing in line at the ATM plotting never-gonna-happen revenge on yet another vendor in a long line of vendors all bearing the immense karmic weight of our curses and of course, our cash.

16 comments:

  1. Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, I don't know what to say. Pastel green, elephant tooth color? I know this is making you snort, but it makes me smile. I just adore you and your wife. Keep your head up, buddy.

    So happy you got a blog going on. ;)

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  2. LOL. You had me at take a crap. This is too funny.

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  3. You can see the humor, you write the comic situation like a script writer for a sit-com, I smile, with your other friends/readers here.

    I suspect when you enter elephant tooth area, you are not smiling, or when you contemplate living with this color, you do not guffaw.

    *Now I am a light shade of pastel green as I realize this is what we will get.*

    I wonder how long you took to choose this SHADE of greenish yellow for your blog.

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  4. ya know, his tooth would be green if he hadn't brushed in a while. maybe next time be more specific about the elephant's dental hygiene.

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  5. lorianne said what i thought when she said elephant tooth colour...

    i've linked you on my own bit of blog.

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  6. Dan - I'm glad you have a blog! This was funny - sorry about the pale pastel green bathroom.

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  7. Dan, glad to see you have made it to the blogging world. Great rant, loved
    the "plotting never-gonna-happen revenge". That was hilarious (obviously not for you!!)

    Keep 'em coming.
    MM

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  8. I like this kind of rant where one thing leads to another then to another and in the end it cycles back to what brought on the rant in the first place. Hope to see some of your creative writing here. Welcome to the land of Blogz.

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  9. (They have elephants in China...?)

    Think of it as "jade", Daniel. And remember what Confucius said: "Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it."

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  10. Yeah, Lori already snagged my tooth color comment. Look at it this way - now you have a great colorful story for your guests!

    (bookmarking blog now...)

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  11. Love the rant, Daniel... A blog of rants would be perfect. Dan's Rant's...

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  12. Inspired by Ant on the art of a rant, I'm thinkin' ~ The RantMan Cometh?

    Goin' with Ian & Confucius on this one, finding the beauty in what you're stuck with, mid snorts and plottings. Thinkin' LadyTuesday could purchase a whole new line of towels to tone down the tone?

    As for your tone Stine'way, absolutely in sync -- oh, sorry. Love the name of your blog - so that just in case we friends forget your locale, we can look up above and remember. (so smiling) ~ Absolutely*Kate

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  13. In China, aren't all the elephants carved out of jade? I think she was right -- it is elephant tooth colored. What's your complaint again?

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  14. The color "ivory" will never be attractive to me again. I will always think of it as "elephant tooth color." Unbrushed elephant tooth. I will have nightmares tonight, populated by grinning elephants flashing their slimy, green teeth. But when I wake up, snorting and gnashing my own pearly whites, I will think of you sitting on the can with your knees poking into the bathtub, and you and your lovely wife plotting your "never-gonna-happen revenge" and I'll smile and go back to sleep.

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  15. This was very funny! :)

    BTW, Daniel, is the background of your blog yellowish green, or reddish in color? ;) Maybe one or two characters from this story are colorblind!? Ivory has a bit of brownish cast to its neutral shade... maybe someone saw brown/red as green (or the other way round...)? :O

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