Month: July 2020

I am a big fan of technology, I think that in general my life has been greatly improved by man improving on nature or using science to better all of our lives. A couple of examples of this include the internet, something I couldn’t have lived without during lockdown and the incredible laser contraption the doctor used to weld my retina back to my eyeball. Both life changing scientific achievements for me, proof that with some dedication by people much smarter than me everyone’s life is improved.

This is particularly true when it comes to nature for me. I largely hate the “great outdoors”, and this is only compounded now I live somewhere where pretty much anything can kill you. Snakes, Gators, Sharks, it’s not quite Australia, but it’s a long way from Canvey Island, where all you need to be wary of is the gang of 14 year old’s hanging around by the lake waiting to stab you with blunt screwdrivers.

I hate no part of nature more than the beach. A very controversial opinion I am sure, but humor me for a second, and while you do, know that Laura has literally just shouted at Fred “Open your buttocks, I can’t get the sand out if you clench”

Today, we went to a lovely beach on the Atlantic coast of Florida, just a few miles south of the famous Cocoa Beach. The weather was perfect, we were with great friends everything was set for a lovely afternoon. There were some cruise ships anchored off shore and the scene could not be more picturesque. That is if you could ignore the many metric tons of seaweed dumped along the shoreline.

My first problem with the beach is the sand. Do people really like sand? Today Harriet took it upon herself to get buried up to her neck. A fun childish past time, everyone laughing and everyone having fun with Harriet. Only those people don’t have to get all the bloody sand out of her hair which is now matted like a persian rug. They won’t be there when she is screaming in agony as Laura rips the hairbrush through her tangled birds nest with the touch and finesse of the Incredible Hulk.

And what sand isn’t still in Harriet’s hair is either down her swimsuit, something she will openly tell anyone who will listen, in between Fred’s ass cheeks or in my car, where it will somehow stay for the next 9 months. Fred will do the bare minimum of showering so I am assuming sand will still be stuck up his ass when COVID is over.

The second thing is the sea. I am a massive fan of cooling off with a swim, picture me floating round like a manatee, beer in hand, Astros cap over my face, it’s a picture of summer bliss. What I don’t like is the following

a.) not being able to see more than a foot into the water

b.) having wildlife brush past me and my pasty white legs and not having a clue what it is

c.) the never ending taste and smell of salt

d.) knowing I am swimming in other peoples waste

But people don’t piss in the sea Dave, I can hear you say, lying to both me and more importantly yourself. I know they do, because I do it and also because about 2 hours ago Fred tapped me on the shoulder to tell me “Hey Dad, I am just going in to the water for a minute, I need a pee”

The next thing I hate about the beach, the blistering hot sun pounding down on you for hour after hour. There’s no shade, it’s brutal. People bring umbrellas and gazebos to cover themselves up, loading up their cars full of stuff, umbrellas sticking out the car windows, boogie boards strapped to the roof, their kids sitting in an “s” shape in the back wedged between a cooler and 6 packs of bud light. All of that stuff get’s unpacked and carried across the sand, set up, achieves the square root of fuck all, then has to be taken down and wedged back in to the car. Only when it’s put back, it’s full of sand.

We make sure that the kids have plenty of sunscreen on and constantly reapply, but until you have dragged a 7 year old out of the sea, made her reapply the 4th coat of sunscreen and then watched her roll around in the sand, her arms still sticky from the most recent application, you haven’t known true pointlessness.

So here is my solution to all of this and it is simple. Waterparks.

Orlando is home to no less than 5 world class waterparks. Places where if you want to crash around in waves you can, without the risk of a rip current taking you to Cozumel. If you want to build a sand castle, you can, and then shower off the sand after. Where if it gets too hot, you can just go into a shop or restaurant and have an ice cream or a beer. Where you do not even have to take a towel because they will give you one.

These places are also only 20 minutes from my house, not at least an hour away. My hatred of the beach is only matched by my love of the man made improved version, Typhoon Lagoon.

A very elegant solution to my problem, but like all my great ideas there is a problem. Laura doesn’t like them quite as much. I have never understood why, but over the last few years I have got to the bottom of it, mainly during our regular conversations of me moaning about going to the beach and her telling me to stop being a miserable bastard.

Laura hates waterparks because of the slides. Apparently once when she was a child she went on the slide at our local swimming pool, a place where you get a free case of legionnaires disease with every fun swim. This pool had a slide, I remember when they built it and charged a pound a go, it was incredible. Well it turns out that Laura got stuck in it once, apparently this harrowing experience put her off for life. I have some sympathy for this. A seagull once landed on my back at school, one of those massive ones, like an albatrosses big brother. Scared the shit out of me and I have literally never recovered, so I do understand childhood trauma.

The second reason is because with out fail, every time we go to a waterpark Laura has a wardrobe malfunction. Seriously more people have seen Laura’s left tit from it falling out of her bathing suit than have seen the last series of Game of Thrones. She always makes me go on the slides first for some reason, so I finish the ride, go to get out of the splash pool, turn around and every single time just get an eyeful of big white tit. Now over the last 13 years I have seen plenty of Laura’s big white left tit, but for some reason the combination of her blind panic from being on the slide and her obliviousness to her public nudity, makes these particular instances the best time to see her big white tit.

I don’t know how we are going to work this out to be honest. Florida is almost nothing but beach, so we will obviously be going again, I will obviously moan about it, my car will never be truly rid of sand. We will probably go to Typhoon Lagoon again as well, probably once a year, so the tradition of public nudity can continue. It really is a first world problem, but one I need to solve.

So while technology could improve the “beach” experience for me by basically eliminating it, not all technology is good. Harriet had her first guitar lesson today over Zoom. To say it was a shambles would be under selling it. All she wants to do is strum along and make up songs, she has no interest in learning how to play and as the first lesson was entirely how to tune the guitar I can’t imagine lesson two happening. The best part of the lesson was when after explaining for 15 minutes how to tune a guitar, the guy just said “Download this app, it will do it for you”

Technology, eliminating pointless jobs, one by one

As another week of me sitting around on “sabbatical” begins I am genuinely starting to think the last few months are getting to me. My motivation levels to do almost anything are zero, the couch has a Dave shaped dent in it and I am not sure I have got properly dressed for weeks.

This is spreading a bit around the house as well. I asked Laura if she wanted to go away for a day or two this week, stay at a resort, lounge around by the pool and a few cocktails and she replied that she couldn’t really be bothered, I was pleased with this response because nor could I.

This means we haven’t done much over the last week or so, but as usual the things we have done have not gone exactly to plan.

Laura had arranged an evening out with her friends last week, just a few outside drinks at our local bar/restaurant. This venue has a special place in my heart. There was a period of time I ate there 4 times a week, I watched every England game at the last World Cup there, when Laura goes there with out me and gets the bill/check they identify her as “Dave’s wife”. It is basically the cheers bar and I am Norm.

When I do go there it is often spontaneous, I will receive or make a phone call, ask for permission, jump in the shower and be there 20 minutes later. It’s a very simply process. Whenever Laura goes on a night out it it is planned out better than the D-Day landings, if never as successful.

Laura decided she was going to ride her bike, so along with the usual minute by minute planning of our entire day so she could be ready to leave for 5.30, I was tasked with checking multiple weather reports from multiple sources to ensure biking was an option. At one point I thought I was going to have to send up a weather balloon to confirm that the glorious cloudless skies were going to hold.

My reward for playing weatherman and actually feeding my children for once was I got my usual game of golf on Friday. Now when Laura goes out, I have to help plan, drive her there, deal with the inevitable two day hangover that follows. When I go out, I have to bring home food.

On my way home on Friday afternoon I made my usual call to ask what was required for dinner and where I should go to get it. The phone rang and was answered pretty quickly. Instead of my wife’s dulcet Essex accent, I was met with a thick New York one, and a fairly stressed sounding one at that.

I hadn’t dialled the wrong number, instead it was Laura’s friend, walking partner and the reason my cell phone bill could fund a small army. The kids were playing together and had used the pool.

I asked to speak to Laura and apparently she was “busy”. The kids have been on holiday for weeks, we can’t go anywhere, there is nothing Laura could be doing to be busy in my mind. Some back and forward ensured and I was discouraged from “rushing home” and told that we would “Sort dinner out later”

I always get a bit nervy when I am told to not come home, it is very unlike Laura. Normally if I am out of the house for 25 minutes I am getting texts telling me the kids have recreated The Ultimate Warrior vs Hulk Hogan from Wrestlemania 6 over a phone charger or that there is a gas leak 5 doors down and I have to get home to sort it. It turns out that this was no different.

I made my way home anyway and walked in the house. The kids were unusually quiet, there was a sense of fear pouring from their bedrooms. They had definitely been told to go there and not leave.

I get to the living room, it is empty. Something is definitely going on.

And then I see it.

We have a patio/lanai at the back of our house, it is just over 300 square foot, all covered by a roof and screen, it is pretty large and the pool is sat out there. This 300 square foot area is covered with 4 inches of water. Not a few puddles, not some overspill from the pool, 4 inches of water everywhere and in the middle of it all, Laura standing there with a giant squeegy tool trying to sweep it all out of the screen.

I asked a couple of cursory questions about how this happened and why 400 gallons of water was sploshing about in my back yard and was met with the usual response when Laura has messed up. Hostility.

A side note, Laura is the master of getting away with mistakes. If I mess up and she questions me I apologize and take my bollocking. If Laura messes up and I ask she goes on the attack. The line “I know a messed up that is punishment enough” is spat out with such venom that any further digging from me just ends up with me somehow being in trouble.

It turns out that the kids played in the pool, It needed filling up and so Laura put the hose in and went indoors. She then got involved in a very in depth conversation, again probably about what an amazing husband I am, and forgot. Allegedly this was just for 20 minutes. Now I am no scientist, but if that was 20 minutes of water then there is a problem with the water pressure in my shower because I’ve had more powerful showers standing under a watering can.

Complaining about it was pointless, so I went inside, left them to it and ordered Chick-fil-a, I had seen this very similar scenario before and moaning got me nowhere.

Last summer we lived in a townhouse with a lovely green out the front. The first day of the school holidays they had a party for the kids with games and food and it lasts all day. Laura volunteered us to provide the power and water for the 25 foot water slide.

The party started at about 11am. I got in from work at 6pm, walked through the house and to the green. As I set foot on the grass I sunk about 8 inches into the sodden turf. I looked up and about 40 kids were head to toe covered in wet mud. It was like Glastonbury for kids. The hose had been on for 7 hours and literally flooded the green. It was still on.

Now I don’t mind a bit of fun, but Jesus Christ I was in the hole for about a $200 water bill and another $150 for some new shoes that I had ruined.

It was then that I learned for the final time not to question Laura, because she lost her shit at me complaining about that. So in hindsight it was a good thing that we couldn’t be bothered to go away this week, I’ve got another ridiculous water bill coming.

I don’t know if the UK is inherently safer than the US or if people in the UK just do not have the same level of fear pumped in to them as they do here, but everything is a crisis in America and people often focus on the worst possible outcome.

There are a lot of disaster whores in the US media and local news is the best/worst for this. I’ve written before about the ridiculous Tropical Storm warnings. I’ve gone out on the advice of Brian Shiels the weatherman more times than I care to admit and bought 400 bottles of water, enough canned food to feed an army and several pocket knives to get me through the pending Armageddon that he has predicted. Every single time without fail it just turned out to be a fairly average wet day on Canvey Island.

This fear is even more evident when it comes to home invasion. Since I moved to the USA in January 2015 I have lived in 6 houses/apartments, all 6 have had incredibly complex burglar alarm systems, despite the fact it is 100% legal to murder in cold blood anybody who enters your house uninvited. Lately I’ve been praying my neighbor accidentally stumbles through my door one night, or at least his noisy dog.

I never had a burglar alarm in the UK, I always thought it made more sense to just buy the sign that says “Protected by ADT” rather than the actual alarm system. I mean what would the sign cost, $10? The alarm system costs about $100 a month.

We don’t have the alarm system set up right now. So I thought we just had a keypad in the wall that if I wanted to organize and set up was capable of being used. Turns out I was wrong and I found out in the worse possible way.

There was a bad lightning storm the other night and there was a loud strike right by our house. All the power went out and a couple of minutes later everything reset. This was at 2am. Gradually as everything came back on I started to hear an annoying beep.

I woke Laura up to see if she could hear it, but the combination of her almost complete and utter total hearing loss and the fact she sleeps like I’m slipping her rohypnal on an hourly basis meant she was not bothered by it. I on the other hand was wide awake and the regular beep every 20 seconds was pissing me off.

I got up to try and stop this noise and first stop was the alarm panel in our utility room. That was the culprit so I thought I was halfway there to solving my problem. I turned off the power to the unit and went back to bed.

The good people at ADT though, they want to keep you safe when there is a powercut and so the battery back up kicked in and the noise just carried on and on. It was like Chinese water torture, not that Laura noticed, she had slipped back in to her coma.

Now I will admit after 20 minutes I was angry, tired and angry. I got back up and just hit some buttons on the panel. The combination of me swearing and cursing and the beeping actually woke Laura up so I now had an audience as my meltdown began.

Just as I finished mashing the keypad Laura gave some fairly decent advice, that I shouldn’t do that in case I accidentally armed the alarm. Unfortunately she gave me that advice exactly 4 seconds after I had inadvertently set the alarm I didn’t even know worked. That was a great thing to have happen as the second we moved the beep turned in to an ear piercing alarm that would have woken the street.

The combination of tiredness, frustration and now utter fear that the police were going to turn up meant I had a bit of breakdown. I started to panic and could not think of a way to stop this absolute nightmare. Laura ran out and turned all the power off to the house and there was silence, beautiful silence.

I phoned up the alarm company who had literally no idea who I was. 25 minutes of my English accent trying to explain that I didn’t have a contract with them and could not prove I lived at my house, but needed them to help me stop the ear drum piercing noise followed. I’ve had less frustrating calls at 3am.

The woman gave me a number of codes to put in to the keypad to reset it. Not a single one of these codes caused anything other than the alarm to just go off, yet we persisted with this utter bollocks just long enough for me to thank the woman for nothing and hang up.

She did say though that worst case scenario just to flick the fuse/breaker off that supplied power to the alarm and it would stop and maybe they could get someone round in 3 days. A brilliant solution, except that meant no power to our bedroom, ensuite or closet.

At this point the red mist had come down and I had lost my shit.

In our closet there is a panel, I believed at that moment that the whole alarm systems electronics was behind this panel. i couldn’t be sure though because we had no power to the room and it was 3am. Total darkness. 15 minutes later I had found a screwdriver and taken this panel off just by the light of Laura’s phone and my sheer will power.

This didn’t work either. Behind that panel was the entire communication network for the house, cables everywhere, nothing to do with the alarm whatsoever. Complete waste of time and effort.

I’d been up about 2 hours by this point, the power was off to the AC unit so it was hot, I couldn’t even turn the fan on because again, no power. Just I was about to give up and resign myself to no power in the bedroom for 3 days I saw a box and on that box was a sticker that read “ADT”

This box was basically on the ceiling, 10 feet off the ground. I went and got the steps. It’s pitch dark, so hot my chest hair has matted together like a gap year student in Goa’s dreadlocks but I must be nearly there.

I undo the screws, swearing and cursing with every turn of the completely unfit for purpose screwdriver. Once the box is open I can see a battery. I was looking at some wiring 10 feet off the ground, the only light coming from the 5 foot 3 inch tall Laura shining her iPhone 7 flashlight approximately 9 inches away from where it needs to be. There are some wires going to the battery, I am tired and frustrated, I just ripped all the wires out of the battery. I’ve no idea if this is the right thing to do, but at that point that was all I had left.

We put the power back on and the beeping seemed to have stopped. If I can cool down and get to sleep quickly I might still get two hours sleep before I have to get up. I went and changed, because frankly my sweat wicking boxer shorts had failed dismally. As I went back in to the closet to get changed I heard another beep, and then another, and another.

I don’t mind admitting that at this point I lost my shit completely. Laura made some comment about minding my blood pressure which only pissed me off even more, especially as she had spent the last 2 hours telling me that I shouldn’t have armed the alarm and when she wasn’t doing that she was shining the light juuusst in the wrong spot, so I got the slightest bit of light, but not enough to be worthwhile.

I got back up on the ladder and there was one more wire that was still connected. This wire ran to a plug, simple. Just pull the plug out and go to bed, ignore Laura laughing at the mess I was in and all will be good.

I tried to pull the plug out and it wouldn’t move. Some absolute cockwomble had screwed the plug into the wall. In order to remove it I had to unscrew it from the wall and the screws were about the size of the screws in Fred’s glasses.

For the next 30 minutes I was using a steak knife to try and unscrew two cross head screws in a plug in almost complete and utter darkness.

My life was in infinite more danger from the stress induced heart attack caused by trying to fix the alarm than from any intruder into our house that is in a gated community. I was going to call the alarm company and get it all set up, but when I went to look at the mess I had caused the next day it is beyond repair.

So with no alarm system and Nancy Alvarez from Channel 9 news whipping up hysteria on the news every morning I decided to take some strong action. The morning after this with Nancy’s dulcet tones telling me about a gas station being robbed 50 miles from my house I sat down and spent 4 hours doing my hunting license so I can buy a pump action shotgun. That and the sign outside my house saying I have an alarm should be more than enough, and if it isn’t I’ll send Laura out to tell the intruder all the things he is doing wrong.

The last few days have been eventful, something that if I don’t write I at least think every few days. With all of us at home all of the time there is seemingly no end to the constant adventures or things that piss me off. It’s Monday night as I write this, and it is providing me some much-needed therapy.

Let’s start this tale on Friday. Friday was a good day for me, mainly because as regular as a Monday Curry night, I play golf on Friday. You may or may not remember that I have been trying to score less than 90 at golf despite the best efforts of the rest of the Shroder clan to stop me. Well Friday I shot 87, didn’t get sunburnt and won $50 from my playing partners. So needless to say when I drove home after the round I was in a very good mood. It was a bit odd though, because I text Laura and said I was nearly finished and she gave me the green light to stay and have a couple of beers after I finished. This never, ever, happens. Usually I have to order her dinner on the 18th tee to ensure she doesn’t go hungry, but on further questioning it turns out she had a friend round.

So I got home and Laura and her friend were sitting on the back porch drinking. It was about 6pm and they had been there since 4pm. I had no beers in the house and in the spirit of joining in I had to drink White Claw, Black Cherry flavor.. This goes against everything I stand for. It tastes like someone has taken a sparkling water on a short tour of the Skittles factory. Not a long enough tour for the water to actually taste like Skittles, just the faintest hint of fake fruit.

Fortunately Laura’s friends husband (My friend, but for the purpose of detail I thought it important to know that these two people were married and we aren’t running some sort of match.com for drunks in our back garden) turned up with two cases of Coors light.

What was a very civil chat around our garden table, with a couple of drinks and some background music ended up turning into a 6 hour session where a bottle of Barcardi a bottle of Malibu and 18 pint size bottles of Coors disappeared from my kitchen. We put together a playlist of songs we wanted to listen to the next day which happened to be Independence Day. I’ve got new neighbors and they have a dog that barks every night at 11pm. It barks right by my window and could be considered annoying. Well it is definitely not as annoying as four middle aged people arguing the toss over the best Luther Vandross song at midnight.

We made some plans to watch fireworks, have a BBQ and listen to the great new playlist we put together for Independence Day and everyone went their own way at about 12.30am, all a little merry.

I woke up on Saturday 4th July in pretty good shape. No hangover, Laura had made proper British Bacon and the world was a great place! The sun was shining we had some plans for Independence Day and all was positive with the world.

Unfortunately all was not as rosy in the other house and any plans for a boozy 4th July with the worlds greatest playlist had to be put on hold as Laura’s friend could barely keep down a slice of toast. This is a delightful change of pace in that relationship. Laura usually is the one who gets the 3 day hangover, so while it was a shame we couldn’t all celebrate losing the American War of Independence together part of me was relieved that I wasn’t dealing with hungover Laura.

What we did instead was to take a stroll around our neighborhood and freeload everyone else’s fireworks. As soon as the sun went down we were out walking around watching some pretty spectacular explosions. The green outside our house had a particularly impressive display.

Managed by a drunk man in an Eagle tank top, lighting the fireworks with the end of his cigarette, they were incredible, professional-level fireworks. It was here that I realized that Fred is a bit of a coward. Fred is nearly 10, an age where fireworks should be some of the best things you have ever seen in your life. I think that in a previous life Fred was in the trenches during WWI. Every explosion saw him literally run down the street. We gave him a sparkler and he almost certainly shit his pants. Harriet wasn’t much better, just shouting at the top of her lungs to the man running the show that it was dangerous and he should stop. Right couple of party animals our kids.

We carried on a bit of a walk, to be honest, it was pointless. We live in an area with a lot of trees, so you couldn’t see any fireworks, but you just got enveloped by all of the smoke. It was like a scene out of Full Metal Jacket. Just smoke, explosions, and people (my children) screaming. We quickly got home and somehow the story that was told when we got in was how amazing it was and what a good time everyone had. Trust me, it was neither of those things.

Sunday came and I was going to try and sneak out for some more golf. Buoyed on by my great round Friday I had it in my head that with just a bit more encouragement as a child I could have made it pro. I didn’t pluck up the courage to mention my plans to Laura until after the West Ham match and by then it was too late and in a moment of utter madness when I was trying to get Harriet to leave me alone during the football I had promised her I would play Monopoly.

What the hell was I thinking? Monopoly is an awful idea, a terrible game to play with a 9 and 7 year old and to make it even worse I had fallen asleep on the sofa and Harriet woke me up to play. So perfect storm, a game that is 99% guaranteeing an argument coupled with me being woken up and being a bit tired and irritable.

We have no less than 5 different versions of Monopoly in our house. Frozen Monopoly, Marvel Superheroes, Fortnite, A version which consists of the properties Laura used to manage in London (that’s a fun evening) and the version we decided to play yesterday. Voice control.

The Voice Control version stops any cheating. It has an Alexa type device that you talk to and say things like “Buy Park Place” or “Pass Go” and it tracks everything, who owns what, who has to pay who. It’s the version less likely to cause disagreements because it is impossible to cheat. It is also the version I am most likely to through across the room.

The device is really clever, especially if you have an American accent. I don’t. So whilst it is 100% accurate when it comes to money and who owns what, it takes me at least 15 goes to get it to understand what I mean and I am the best at it. My tired, pissed off voice shouting at this Alexa shaped, battery operated piece of crap “Buy St. James” followed by the annoying voice replying “Hazel already owns St Charles”.

Firstly, who the hell is Hazel. Secondly for the 25th time, I said St James, not St Charles. At one point I said “Buy New York” and somehow it heard “Buy Ventnor”. I hate this thing, with a passion even greater than I have for people who were born in South London but support Man Utd.

Laura filmed the entire thing, sending clips of me getting more and more frustrated to my family, every laugh pissing me off more and more.

Harriet smashed us as well. By the end she had 10 times more money than everyone else and owned more hotels than Conrad Hilton.

That brings us to today. I decided we were going to go to the Gulf Coast and go on a dolphin boat tour, where we go out and spot dolphins, manatees and enjoy the beautiful waterways. We drove down there in my truck, had a decent if neither spectacular or appropriate lunch at Hooters and boarded the boat.

It was really good! We saw wild dolphins the second we left the dock and had a great 90 minutes buzzing around looking at multi million dollar houses, wildlife and dickheads falling off jet skis. The weather was fantastic and the boat trip was so much fun, for Laura and I. The kids had a succession of bullshit arguments about who had the most Diet Coke, or whether Harriet could pronounce the word miserable properly. About 40 minutes in, just as we got to the uninhabited island I genuinely thought about jumping out and creating some sort of Tom Hanks Castaway type new life for myself on a sandbar spitting distance from Tampa.

One thing you should know about me is I hate the beach. I hate sand, I hate salt water, I hate the feeling of fish brushing up against me, I hate not having somewhere comfortable to sit, I hate my pasty skin cooking all day with no shade. I also in the main, hate other people.

I relented and gave the kids an hour on the beach, just enough time for them to decant half of Madeira beach into my truck, also just enough time for us to get hungry enough to visit Laura’s favorite restaurant Rib City. Laura loves ribs about as much as I hate the beach.

We drove around for 40 minutes and got to the restaurant, a place we have been to so many times over the last 13 years, a place we have fond memories of. We have taken friends there, my Dad and Step Mum, my grandparents, it’s nothing fancy, but we love it there and have always enjoyed it. As I pull up it’s pitch dark, completely shut down, the only one of the 25 different Rib City restaurants to close down. Another faceless victim of COVID.

By this time, I have had enough. The kids have argued all day, mainly about nothing, I can’t get the meal I want and I have a two and a half hour drive home through multiple thunder storms listening to the same 5 songs on the radio.

About 30 minutes out from home Harriet asks if instead of getting food from a drive thru can we go in to the restaurant. It’s getting late, so I asked her why. Apparently she was fine, but would need to go to the bathroom when we got to the restaurant. A bit of questioning later and she tells us she is fine, it’s not urgent.

10 minutes later a little voice pipes up from the back seat. “Mummy, sorry”. Laura asks what for. Long story short, my car stinks of piss and Laura spent the last 15 minutes of the drive home with a bucket which 2 hours previous made a beautiful sand castle, full of a 7 year old’s urine.

I’d give anything for a quiet week.

As I sit and start to write this I am looking across my living room. I was 39 years old before I managed to become mature enough to save up enough money to buy my own home. Before I met Laura she was already more mature than I am and owned her own home, I lived there, I paid the mortgage when Laura stopped work and for all intents and purposes it was my home, but I didn’t own it.

So all that being said I am quite proud that I managed to buy a house here, I remember the day we signed the paperwork and I actually felt like a grown up for 20 minutes. Home ownership anywhere comes with bills and things you don’t have to worry about when you rent and after 10 months of owning this house I’ve had enough.

We live in a gated community, it basically means that we just lock the gates and live in this bubble like something out of the Truman Show. It is a complete illusion of safety. Literally anybody can get in through the gates at any time, by either tailgating the car in front when they break in or walking through one of the many pedestrian gates that don’t shut properly. These are the responsibility of our Home Owners Association

It’s great though because for this imaginary other world we live in I get to pay the princely sum of $700 a quarter. $700 a quarter and I don’t actually know where it goes. This doesn’t bother me most of the time, I don’t have to think about it, but today I had to pay it and I am pissed off about it. I started to think about what I get for this obscene amount of money and I got more and more pissed off. To the point I went online and found the budget for the HOA to understand exactly where the money went. 45 minutes of looking through spreadsheets and I am still none the wiser.

They did put up some no parking signs outside my house which everyone completely ignores and instead parks across my drive so Laura can’t get off and then has a massive “venting” session at me about.

The $700 a quarter HOA fees are the least of it to be honest. Constantly having to repair things is getting on my tits as well. Air Conditioning prime example. We had an issue with our unit the other week, someone came round and quoted me $6,000 to fix it. I wasn’t having that, so I bought a wet vac with the intention of fixing it myself. I do not know the first thing about ac units, I have not looked at it and I have no intention to to be honest.

Today though there was the typical Armageddon like storm about 3 o’clock and lightning struck really close. I know it was close because I was having a little afternoon nap now I have absolutely nothing to do with my days and it woke me up with a bit of a start. About 3 hours later I was sitting right where I am now and realized it was hotter than a McDonald’s Apple Pie. It turns out the air conditioner was broken.

Somehow I managed to fiddle around with some wires and got it back working, but it is an all to timely reminder that I am going to be sinking another $6k into this house pretty soon, the new TV is going to have to wait.

It’s OK though because we have a way to raise the money, that doesn’t involve me selling a kidney or me being one of the first people to trial an experimental COVID vaccine.

Some people might remember Laura fancies herself as a bit of a wheeler dealer, a saleswoman. I have made a living selling one thing or another for the last 20 years, Houses, Timeshare, Recruitment Services, but Laura will tell you to this day she is the best salesman in this house. She sold a load of our crap before we moved to America on Facebook and in a world where she could have any hobby or activity imaginable to fill her free time she has taken to selling other peoples shit. This has been going on for about 3 weeks now.

As I peer over the top of the laptop I can see a cardboard box and two full trash bags of other peoples shit. To be clear, this isn’t stuff other people wanted to sell. It is shit they don’t want, would happily have thrown away and is now sitting in my front room while Laura takes occasional photos and sticks on 3 selling pages. We live in a country where everything is cheap and disposable, nothing is really built to last, but you can buy new stuff and it won’t break the bank.

Today I had to sit and watch Laura take a picture of an 18 inch plush Unicorn. She put it up for $5. Who in the blue hell is buying second hand kids teddies for $5 off Facebook. I tell you who. Serial Killers.

We moved in to a gated community to stop just anyone being able to wander around where we live, stroll up to our front door and look in to our house. I mean Jesus Christ 50% of the people here have guns, so why wouldn’t we want a bit of extra security. We just negate that by constantly adding people we don’t know to our approved visitor list to pick up, again, other… peoples.. shit..

You also have to wonder the caliber of person who is picking up their 5th item from Laura’s little shop of horrors. Right now, apart from the Unicorn, we have a woman’s rain coat and a kids manicure set and some used bath mats. Who the hell is buying this? She sold a second hand trash can once, it was the most successful sale ever, $80!

When, invariably, it doesn’t sell Laura then drops the price to zero and gives the stuff away. Regular customers have figured this out and just wait until it’s free then just pick up a carrier bag full of stuff. One lady has done this about 6 times, she works at Burger King so instead of cash to go towards the security gates we let everyone through, we get left over Burger King desserts. The kids love it, diabetic Dave, not so much.

To be honest it doesn’t bother me too much, except for the non stop, constant Facebook notifications I get whenever anything is put up for sale. I get very few notifications and when I get one I grab my phone pretty quick to see what it is. The sense of disappointment of it being another (sometimes 3rd hand!) item being put up for sale is matched only by the disappointment I used to get when a text came in and it was Pizza Hut telling me about a 2 for 1 deal on a Tuesday.

It could be worse though, at least she is trying to get rid of the stuff, her Dad has a garage full of crap that one day I am going to have to empty out.