IN WHICH DAVID BREAKS AUSTRIA
And then the whole country just went to shit around me. For the last two weeks, if I have touched something, it has disintegrated in a matter of seconds, sometimes even in mere days. Some countries just ain't made Dave-proof. Austria, welcome to the Danger Zone.
What products, specifically, can't handle your overwhelming existence, O glorious warrior-poet, you ask?
MUSTARD CONTAINERS. Although my grocery-shopping history is admittedly a little touch-and-go, I'd thought that in the last couple years I'd started to get the hang of it. So after going grocery shopping for ingredients with which to make a mustard-based barbecue sauce and a few household supplies for my new apartment, I reverted back to my Washingtonian ways and bought a fabric grocery bag. I filled that badboy up, threw it on my bike handles, and pedaled off into the wind. After two blocks of the bag bumping against my wheel spokes, I decide to pull over and readjust, just as a precaution to keep anything from, y'know, breaking. After the readjustment, a gap opens up in traffic, and I floor it onto the street. On my first pedal rotation, however, an explosion of mustard bursts forth from the confines of the bag and garnishes my front tire.
I piece together the crime scene, and deduce that I have, it seems, ripped that shopping bag a new one. Specifically, the bag wandered into my spokes, and a mustard tube (it comes packaged in aluminum tubes like toothpaste here) got caught, whereupon the spokes tore off the top of the tube through the grocery bag. After a few choice words, I roll up the mustard tube to keep it from emptying, push all my groceries away from the corner of the bag with the hole, and continue biking. That ought to teach me to take precautions.
SHOPPING BAGS. Whereupon, about 4 feet later, I notice a massive tear has opened up the entire back of the shopping bag. I throw that bitch out at the next trash can I find, throw everything into the basket I bought to act as a hamper in my apartment, and precariously walked my bike the 20 minutes to my apartment.
BIKES. This one's pretty simple. I was mounting my bike all pro-like, and in a decidedly un-pro manner, I kicked off my back reflector. Could've happened to anyone, really.
BIKE LOCKS. Then I broke my bike key whilst trying to take my bike lock off the back of my bike in order to lock the damn thing right before leaving on a train bound for Villach for the weekend, so me and Andy were forced to double-down on his lock until we got back and I could get my spare key.
LEDERHOSEN. In Villach, we had a Trachtenparty, meaning everyone wore dirndls and lederhosen. I also apparently needed lederhosen for my school's ball (the Pitz Ball, as it were), so this was just a good investment. However, after a mere single use, my lederhosen broke right in the scrotal region. Because I bought them on sale, I couldn't even take them back to the store. Since I'm not trying to show up to the Pitz Ball in ballsack-less lederhosen, this was a low point in the life of The Kid.
THE WEATHER. After doing my laundry for the first time in Austria, I hung it out to dry because Austrians are too busy worrying about their silly "environment" to dry their clothes with any efficiency. For the next two days, it rained mercilessly upon my freshly-laundered clothing. I cut my losses, bought a drying rack for my room, and took my clothes inside from the elements which the heavens had unleashed upon them. The weather has been nothing short of heavenly since.
LIGHTS. When the lights in my room are off, they flicker on. Not only is this random circuit-completion disconcerting, but it's also a bitch to fall asleep to. In order to do that, I have to unscrew the lightbulbs in my room every night, so the first thing I do every morning when I wake up at 5:30 in the AM (i.e., while it's still dark outside) is stand on my bed and put my lightbulbs back in their sockets. Which is precisely what I want to do as soon as I wake up at 5:30 in the morning.
BIKE LOCKS REDUX. Not to be outdone, my spare bike key then broke in my bike lock while my bike was locked. Tough titties, Dave.
HOW DID YOU OVERCOME THESE CATASTROPHES? Moxie. Also, I duct taped the reflector back onto my bike. And one of my students at school told me her grandma would sew my lederhosen back together. And I bought a handsaw and went to damn town on my bike lock until I freed my poor bicycle from his terrestrial shackles. So, to recap, that is, in order: moxie, duct tape, one grandmother, and a saw. And my bike is still coated in mustard.
What products, specifically, can't handle your overwhelming existence, O glorious warrior-poet, you ask?
MUSTARD CONTAINERS. Although my grocery-shopping history is admittedly a little touch-and-go, I'd thought that in the last couple years I'd started to get the hang of it. So after going grocery shopping for ingredients with which to make a mustard-based barbecue sauce and a few household supplies for my new apartment, I reverted back to my Washingtonian ways and bought a fabric grocery bag. I filled that badboy up, threw it on my bike handles, and pedaled off into the wind. After two blocks of the bag bumping against my wheel spokes, I decide to pull over and readjust, just as a precaution to keep anything from, y'know, breaking. After the readjustment, a gap opens up in traffic, and I floor it onto the street. On my first pedal rotation, however, an explosion of mustard bursts forth from the confines of the bag and garnishes my front tire.
 |
| Here's a visual cue. |
SHOPPING BAGS. Whereupon, about 4 feet later, I notice a massive tear has opened up the entire back of the shopping bag. I throw that bitch out at the next trash can I find, throw everything into the basket I bought to act as a hamper in my apartment, and precariously walked my bike the 20 minutes to my apartment.
BIKES. This one's pretty simple. I was mounting my bike all pro-like, and in a decidedly un-pro manner, I kicked off my back reflector. Could've happened to anyone, really.
BIKE LOCKS. Then I broke my bike key whilst trying to take my bike lock off the back of my bike in order to lock the damn thing right before leaving on a train bound for Villach for the weekend, so me and Andy were forced to double-down on his lock until we got back and I could get my spare key.
LEDERHOSEN. In Villach, we had a Trachtenparty, meaning everyone wore dirndls and lederhosen. I also apparently needed lederhosen for my school's ball (the Pitz Ball, as it were), so this was just a good investment. However, after a mere single use, my lederhosen broke right in the scrotal region. Because I bought them on sale, I couldn't even take them back to the store. Since I'm not trying to show up to the Pitz Ball in ballsack-less lederhosen, this was a low point in the life of The Kid.
 |
| "Ah, yup, looks like my testes have found their way onto the floor again." |
LIGHTS. When the lights in my room are off, they flicker on. Not only is this random circuit-completion disconcerting, but it's also a bitch to fall asleep to. In order to do that, I have to unscrew the lightbulbs in my room every night, so the first thing I do every morning when I wake up at 5:30 in the AM (i.e., while it's still dark outside) is stand on my bed and put my lightbulbs back in their sockets. Which is precisely what I want to do as soon as I wake up at 5:30 in the morning.
BIKE LOCKS REDUX. Not to be outdone, my spare bike key then broke in my bike lock while my bike was locked. Tough titties, Dave.
HOW DID YOU OVERCOME THESE CATASTROPHES? Moxie. Also, I duct taped the reflector back onto my bike. And one of my students at school told me her grandma would sew my lederhosen back together. And I bought a handsaw and went to damn town on my bike lock until I freed my poor bicycle from his terrestrial shackles. So, to recap, that is, in order: moxie, duct tape, one grandmother, and a saw. And my bike is still coated in mustard.
Chapter the Eighth
IN WHICH AUSTRIA BREAKS DAVID
The planet was collapsing around my ears, and I hadn't even touched 21st century technology yet. But try as I might, I can't go too long without touching 21st century technology, so you'd best to put on a reading helmet, because you're about to take a ridiculous story to the face.
Once I had my new apartment, I needed internet access. One of the other English teaching assistants in Klagenfurt, Veronica, had accidentally bought two internet sticks (USB ports with SIM-cards in them that act as modems), so I bought one off of her for the store price of €30. It worked wonders for 3 days, when the initial amount on the SIM-card expired. I added €20 to the SIM-card, and thought I'd just get right on back to interneting real quick. My computer, sensing that I could now access the internet of my own accord, reacted in the most predictable manner by refusing to read the internet stick. The next day, I take the stick to Andy's, plug it into Bex's computer, and run some tests. It still doesn't work, so I know it's the stick and not my computer, because science. Though, honestly, it's a little foolish of me to just assume that an Austrian product would work in my presence.
I take the stick back to the store from which it came, called "3," and they tell me I need to have the receipt. I text Veronica to see if she has the receipt, and, impossibly, she actually does. Come Monday, I go get the receipt from her apartment, and I go back to 3. Since that all seemed a little too easy, the guy at 3 informs me that I do not, in fact, have the correct receipt, and so he can't do anything for me. I ask Veronica if she has the right one, and, more in tune with my life, she doesn't. Still, I need the internet, so I go back to 3 the next day to buy a new internet stick. That way, I can at least salvage the €20 I dropped and only take a €30 hit.
Of course, because my happiness angers the gods, 3 has, at some point in the last three weeks, ceased production of internet sticks.
The blond lady at the store, who's apparently miffed at the level to which spending €50 for no internet upsets me, tells me that I need to go to the electronics store in the mall to find myself an internet stick.
 |
| Pictured: the devil. |
I go to the electronics store, Saturn, and for just €45, I buy myself an internet stick that's compatible with 3's SIM-card because I refuse to let that €20 go to waste. Of course, I might as well have just thrown the God-forsaken thing in the trash, since I had already made the fatal error of being in its vicinity. Much like a Native American in slavery, the stick would only work for five minutes at a time before dying. Even worse than a Native American in slavery, however, its death would freeze Windows 7. I run a system recovery to take the programs it downloaded off my computer, and the next morning I try to get it to work again, thinking that maybe I just downloaded everything wrong. This second time it works even less effectively, so I run the system recovery again and head off to school so as not to be late.
When I get back from school, my computer is just finishing up some diagnostics test that it definitely didn't do for my first system recovery, and caps that off by rebooting itself. On the reboot, however, all I get is a wonderful little message informing me that the "BOOTMGR is missing." Apparently, without a boot manager, my laptop can't even manage your average boot, so a reboot was just entirely out of the question.
For those of you keeping track at home, I've now spent €95 on the internet, and have gotten no internet and killed my computer in the process. At least I had the receipt for this stick, so I brought it back to Saturn and got my €45 back. So, on the bright side, it's only cost me €50 to kill my computer.
 |
| This boot, fortunately, is still in the cards. |
HOW DID YOU OVERCOME THIS CATASTROPHE? This one's still in the process of opening its can of whoop-ass on me, actually. My computer is still dead. I've written this entire blog post on a combination of the computer in the teachers' lounge at Pitzelstätten and Bex's laptop in between her marathon Skyping seshes. Such is my commitment to you, my yearning faithful. Oh, and on Friday I found out that my house already had internet I could've hopped on for the whopping sum of €5 a month.
No comments:
Post a Comment