There's a smell in my fridge, I'd better call somone to deal with that...

Yesterday I woke up and there was quite a stench coming from our fridge. I didn't even keep the fridge door open for long enough to work out exactly where it was coming from, I just quickly reached for the phone to arrange for someone else to deal with it. Allow me to use the expression I have coined myself here- 'that's so Dubai'. You would too if it cost you $7! Then I realised that I hoped there wasn't a similar stench coming from the freezer because I had just collected a fresh stash of 'Four n Twenty' pies from my "girlfriend"- (a friend in the know) and the giant would be devastated if we had to lose them through the thawing process. Actually he probably would be overjoyed that he could inhale them all in one go. I'm not one of those horrible expat witches that make their maid clean the showers that are never used, nor do I make them scrub the floors with a toothbrush, however I do avail of the services where a lovely friendly lady will kindly follow the trail of clothes across my house from all my costume changes throughout the week and fold and arrange them in colours and categorise them into singlets, sleveless, sleveed and long sleeved tops. The giant is getting a little worried that I'll get to used to this and when we get back to Australia our house will be a dump like the cat lady's on A Current Affair. I tell him it takes two to tango.

All this talk of help reminds me of the recent toilet fiascoes we've had in our Palm residence. Our place is a 2 bedroom plus maid's room which is about big enough to fit a king size bed and a cupboard. Sounds good I hear you say, buu I mean quite literally only that- if you had all that in there you wouldn't actually be able to open the door. Not so good. Instead we use it as a storage room where we dry our clothes and where the giant and I keep our his and hers craft tool boxes. So that's 3rooms and 4 bathrooms. Hmm. One of the toilets has been blocked for ages so we have been steering clear for a while. Everytime I remember or when another friend says they're having plumbing issues, I remember to call someone to fix it. That's all well and good, so why is it still blocked? Because they never actually turn up. A few weeks ago, we ran into a bit of a problem. Another one bit the dust. 2 down, 2 to go. Like a domino effect, the last 2 went one after the other- like as in one went that night, then our last portal the next morning. We were in a state of emergency and called upon a friend who "knew someone" to fix it. As far as I knew he was a plumber- he came with all the right equipment and was in a plumber's 'costume'. I soon found out that the same little man hung paintings in one friend's house and fixed the electricity in another friend's. One size fits all round here. The giant, being the logic and fact fiend that he is, spent the time while waiting for the man to fix our facilities (plural) to theorise why we had run into this problem, because of course the probablity of all 4 going, was statistically erroneous (and he would actually uses the word 'erroneous'- I just learnt how to properly pronounce it properly). Was there something wrong with the toilets in our apartment? Was there something wrong with the piping? Bringing the intelligent conversation down a few notches, as I do, I thought we should have a look at cutting down on the amount of fibre in the giant's diet and then we realised, maybe we really do need to use those hoses? Maybe the bidets weren't just shoe cleaners? Over my dead body was I going to use a hose. Since then, we have discovered that everyone on our floor keeps having the same issue. Something's wrong with the pipes on our level. Thank the heavens above.

In the same week, the giant left for Japan, and so the toilet conversation continued. We had 4 toilets that couldn't even flush while you have toilets in Japan that you can nearly push a button and order a skinny caramel latte and a little lady in a kimono would deliver it giggling.

That's enough toilet talk for one day. On to my next entry.