La petite maison dans la prairie

Monsieur J and I have been playing what I've taken to calling "Little House on the Prairie." Why, you might ask? Because we've been sans hot water for 3 weeks. 21 days folks, 22 tomorrow.

To heck with sugarplums, I've been dreaming of a hot shower. Can you blame me?

But instead we've been reduced to boiling water in the kettle, pouring it into a bucket and "washing" in the shower. I use the term washing loosely, as I haven't felt especially clean lately.

The good news is, this is France. And somehow I still smell better than 90% of the other people on my bus. I tolerate other people's stinkiness on a daily basis, consider this my contribution...or better yet, my revenge.

With the exception of picking up a warm baguette, everything else takes longer in these parts.

Unfortunately this applies to things breaking in the rental apartment, which sets off a long chain of tedious tasks:

1. Call rental agency x however many times it takes them to realize there really is a problem

2. Rental agency realizes you are not making this up

3. Rental agency calls repair service

4. Wait several days for the repair service to call you

5. Schedule an appointment

6. Wait at least a week for said appointment to roll around

7. Arrange your schedule to be home for the appointment

8. Repair service investigates the problem and sends an estimate to rental agency

9. Agency contacts owner to see if he will agree to the repair

10. Continue waiting, as the owner avoids phone calls from the agency

11. Agency finally gets the owner's agreement and alerts repair service

12. Schedule a follow-up appointment with the repair service to actually fix the problem

13. Wait at least another week for said appointment

14. Arrange your schedule to be home for the 2 p.m. repair

15. Revel in your tenacity and take a hot shower.

We're at step 14 and if I'm not basking in a hot shower when I get home from work tomorrow night, then I'll be channeling George Costanza and his infamous line, "serentity now"!

Here's to returning to America for Christmas, cheers!