Wednesday, October 27, 2004

How (not) to succeed...

Inspired by the list created by the magnificent Kat...

How to Not Be Happy Living on a Tropical Island - Part I:

1) Allow your boyfriend to convince you that moving 4,000 miles away from everyone and everything you know is a GOOD thing.

2) Try not to become alarmed when you ask him for the street address of your new home and he says, "It doesn't work that way here..."

3) Land at an open-air airport on a tiny island at 10:00 at night with one large suitcase and a TV/VCR combo in a box and think, "This is my new life? Where the hell is he?"

4) Crumple into tears over lunch one week into your new life over the fact that the humidity feels oppressive, the mosquitos have used your flesh as their new favorite breeding ground, you're car-less, you live up the steepest concrete (and therefore very slippery when wet) driveway you've ever seen and public buses consider your neighborhood "the country."

5) Try to adjust to a communal lifestyle which includes your next-door neighbors feeling free to enter your home late at night when you're home alone (locked inside the master suite) to use the washer and dryer.

6) Try not to be depressed over the fact that the highlight of your day is packing your man's lunch in the morning.

7) Learn to welcome the braying of the neighborhood donkey. On some days, find yourself thinking, "I know just how you feel, pal."

8) Try to adjust to being dependent on rainfall for your household water supply. Learn to take the quickest showers imaginable. And get used to the fact that you can't flush the toilet when the power goes out, which it does...a lot. Catch yourself peeing in the yard outside your hilltop home with its million dollar view and wonder, "What's wrong with this picture?"

9) Learn to live with a night-time soundtrack of gunshots from the neighborhood at the foot of the hill.

10) Try to be calm when the phone company tells you for many months that they can't hook up your phone...until someone in the neighborhood moves and frees up a line.

11) Begin to comprehend that in this tourist-driven economy, "customer service" usually means someone giving you the evil eye and sucking her teeth with disgust and annoyance at having to wait on you.

12) Finally get your phone installed...one week before you move. Have the phone company misplace the move order...twice.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh my sweet - come on home where the insanity is american flavored :) . . . reading that little list just told me more about your day to day life than all of your posts did . . . oh my . . . I am so not going to bitch about all of the little white fuzzies the washer lere leaves on my velour pants - or the bangbangbang of the radiator or the . . .ummm . . . I'll stop now :) smoochy booches . . . :) Kat

8:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

wow. that little list (as Kat said) really reveals so much. isn't it strange how the idea of living on an island sounds so romantic, but the actual doing it is quite a different slice of pie---- well, I do hope you get back stateside one of these days soon. You will have anew appreciation for all those things we take for granted and then that will buy you a couple of blissful months til you remember all the things you wanted to leave behind . . lol ~bluepoppy

3:28 PM  

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