The dryer saga continues

The guy did come and plug it in and showed me that if I turned the dial to the left, it will run on the delicate cycle and turning the dial to the right is for regular cottons. So I've spent the past few days looking for dryer sheets. There are none in the entire city of Bangalore which doesn't really surprise me seeing that no one except demanding Americans have dryers. I decided to try out the dryer anyway and risk the horrors of static cling. I put in a small, modest load, set the dial to cotton and the time to 30 minutes. It turned on and started chugging away. I sat down on the couch and started flipping through the channels to see what was on - maybe some amazing Guinness World Record was about to be broken. About 5 minutes later, the power went out. Thinking this was a standard, few second outage, I wait for everything to flick back on again. And I wait. And I wait another 5 minutes. The power goes out daily, multiple times but never for more than a minute. I look outside (it is evening) and I see lights on in other apartments. So I come into the kitchen and try the lights. Nothing. I try the lights in the entryway and those work. I try the lights by the TV and those do not (neither does the TV). I go to the bedrooms and all the lights there work. I'm no dummy when it comes to blown fuses so I know I need to find the fuse box.

It's just by the door and I reset all the switches but no luck. Half the apartment works, half does not. I try flipping the switches but again, nothing. So I call John Paul the so-called "manager" who keeps telling me our passes to use the gym will be here tomorrow (that was at least 2 weeks ago). I tell him I was using the dryer but it blew a fuse. I think he thought I had broken the dryer so it took us a good 10 minutes to get on the same page. He assures me that someone is on their way. Two hours later I call him back to tell him no one has come but he ignores my call. About a half hour after that, the creepy electrician is at the door. I tell him the dryer blew a fuse and I tried resetting it myself but still no power in half the apartment. He goes over to the fuse box, presses the one button I didn't in the corner of the box and the power goes on. I tried to tell him that I'm really not an idiot and I did try to reset it by flicking all of the switches, I just didn't press that one button. The explanation I got of the magic button was something like, "Reset all. This fix everything."

I then ask him to wait a minute because the phone is ringing again (someone had been trying to call but kept getting disconnected) and I didn't want him to go before checking that the dryer works. On the phone are the mattress deliverers who are trying to speak to me in Hindi on a very bad cell phone connection. I hang up not sure if they are on their way, are not on their way or have decided to start a bonfire with the mattress. The electrician is over by the dryer and has turned it on. "So, no problem?" I agree that all systems seems to be working and decided that because I was trying to run the washer and dryer at the same time, that must have been too much. He smiles reassuringly, "yes, yes, now no problem." So, I tell him thank you and move towards the door and he says, "oh, I'll wait 1o minutes. Can I have a glass of water?" Oh, I'm sorry. Of course, you saved the day. Sit, have a glass of water. Then he starts asking about what I do and if I have children and then why I don't have children. I tell him I am expecting a delivery and my husband will be home soon so I really appreciate his expertise but he has to go. I've become quite rude. After an awkward hug that I tried to stop with a forceful hand shake, he leaves.

Shortly thereafter, the mattress comes and the two gentlemen who bring it in the house were kind enough to move the old mattress before putting down the new mattress. One of the men hands me the delivery slip and says, "we get a 200 rupee tip," before he could've known if I was going to tip or not. We've been here long enough now that this neither shocked me nor bothered me. I gave them their tip and off they went.

I still had laundry to dry. Just to be on the safe side, I unplugged the water cooler, the washer, and the DVD player and kept all the lights in the kitchen off. I turn it on again and again it starts chugging away. Sir has gotten home at this point so I tell him what's been happening, with a chipper, "not to worry dear, alls well now"...as the power goes out again. I impress George with my fuse box skills and restore power. No matter what other electrical appliances are on or off or unplugged, we can't use the dryer without blowing a fuse.

John Paul, the manager, was supposed to come today to pick up rent money at which time I will tell him we can't use the dryer. Perhaps he is not coming because he knows that I will complain about something else. Or perhaps he knows he really doesn't deserve half the money he is getting in rent but he has not come yet. Oh and nothing ever came of the washer being replaced so who knows what that was about.

But alas it is Friday and as the Indians love to say, TGIFriday - now that the exclusive American restaurant chain has a home here - and George has kindly, sweetly, generously, booked us a room at one of the fancy hotels for the weekend for my birthday (the hotel where the OWC meets) so we're going to pretend to be back on vacation for the weekend and deal with this next week. Kingfisher is sponsoring an Oktoberfest and we are supposed to meet Adele and Marc there tonight. An Indian Oktoberfest should be interesting.

We are getting ready for our trip to the Taj Mahal next weekend and are booking are trip to Singapore for the first weekend in November when there is some golf tournament taking place. George seems to think it won't be difficult to get tickets.

As if that's not already exciting enough...George got us invited to a wedding! One of his co-workers has invited us. There are about five different days listed on the invitation(from Oct. 17th ish to the 27th ish) so we're not sure which day(s) to go and what is expected but he's going to ask around at work! I can't wait for that!

Oh, and please if you are going to send large, lavish birthday packages, send through a reputable company (as opposed to say some phantom "Royal Cargo" company)...