El Andalous - Repairs

My Shower

Another thing that happens when you move into anywhere new is that everything immediately breaks down. Well, it’s what always happens to me, at any rate.

When I was shown round the flat, I was told how the air conditioning worked and it was all fine. Once alone, I just turned it on in my bedroom out of curiosity and it worked. When I went to bed and turned it on for the second time, it didn’t work any more (it just recirculated the air and didn’t cool it). Honestly, I really don’t think I did anything wrong, it just suddenly decided to malfunction.

When I went into the bathroom and turned on the tap in the basin, instead of the water coming out normally, it spurted across at me horizontally, effectively acting as a shower instead. I took to brushing my teeth in the kitchen because otherwise I just got completely soaked each time.

And the shower, well I only had to look at it to know that this was going to be a challenge. I’d got it working OK with the normal shower hose (I just needed to tighten one of the screws to make it stand upright), but there were lots of additional fancy features. I decided to save trying these out until I needed to wash my hair so it didn’t matter if I got completely soaked.

I went into the bathroom with my notepad and pen so that I could write down what each button did. I pushed a few buttons, but few of them seemed to do anything, other than turn on various lights, connect to a non-existent radio, or emit a strange beep.

It then dawned on me that maybe I needed to switch the water on as well, but when I did that, the water just came out of the shower head as usual. I then noticed a sailor’s wheel type thing and I wondered if I should turn that in conjunction with various buttons, but now my whole voyage of exploration was getting a lot more difficult to navigate. This was getting to be reminiscent of the two remote controls to watch television scenario.

With some difficulty and trepidation, I turned the wheel, but nothing happened. Then I thought that maybe I needed the water on as well (so, now that’s three items you need to navigate the shower, it wasn’t looking hopeful). Water suddenly started gushing out of a little hose, obviously broken, at the bottom right of the shower. In my panic, I tried to turn the sailor’s wheel again, but it was stuck. Water was still pouring out. I stood there a bit dumbstruck – I hadn’t really expected this – and then realised I needed to shut off the water, which I did and it stopped. Phew.

I tried to get the wheel back to the position where it used to be, but I couldn’t move it in any direction at all. In addition to this, I couldn’t find an “off” switch for the control to the shower functions. It just kept on flashing 30 degrees at me with a picture of a woman sitting on the seat. But nothing was really happening and I couldn’t get the thing to switch off. So there I stood, naked with greasy hair in a non- functioning shower unit and with only a spluttering and malfunctioning basin tap as an alternative.

In the end, I had to put on my swimming costume and go to the showers by our swimming pools to wash my hair in water that wasn’t particularly warm. I hadn't imagined the start of my day to be like this.

I realised, with reluctance, that I had to get someone to do these repairs. I hate asking people to do things for me as I like to be independent. 

I remember reading a piece in a newspaper arguing that the more independent you try to be, the more dependent you become (eg, instead of relying on your mother to do your cooking and cleaning for you, you suddenly become reliant on the shopkeepers, the machinery, the repairmen etc). It wasn’t a great argument (arguably, you were previously dependent on all these people and your mother in addition), but the general point was valid. We are almost always interdependent at the end of the day and not as independent as we may like to think we are.

Anyway, I digress. Sara had told me I just needed to go to the doormen to ask for repairs to the flat and then pay them directly. So at least this meant that it should be an easy task, even if it did go against the core of my being.

And it was like magic. The tap just needed a little screw-on thing as a replacement, which they already had. The plumber managed to move that sailor’s wheel thing, although it took him about three or four turns to get the water to come out at the right place. That’s the last time I will be trying out the additional features for a while, I reckon. And the air conditioning was sorted over by the fusebox (doh!). And they didn’t charge me!

Sometimes, interdependence isn’t really so bad!