I think anyone, wherever, they are in the world, can appreciate the following scenario:
It's time to get out the Christmas decorations. You scurry around, trying to remember if you had two or three boxes. Finally, you decide you have them all. You untangle the lights, plug them up, and they work. You get the tree, either the plastic one out of the garage or attic or a new one from the tree farm. Okay, time to put the lights on and...a bulb is out or broken. Huh. Where did you put the spares. Hmm...not in the box with the rest of the decorations.
Here is where it turns into my story. Herr Hubby asks where the spare bulbs are. I obviously don't know, otherwise there would be a spare bulb already in my hand. Where did you put them last year. Well, Herr Hubby, we didn't use them last year, as we were in the States going through this exact scenario at my parents' house. Year before? No clue, had a broken foot and did not pack up the decorations, Herr Hubby, you did. Did not. Did too. Infantile bickering continues. Doesn't matter, Herr Hubby, I will buy a replacement. Which, I could not do on that day as we had waited until a Sunday to decorate and no stores are open on Sundays here in Germany.
Shouldn't be hard to find a spare bulb, right? Noooooooo. Nothing, nothing is easy when it comes to shopping here. I could probably buy a tap-dancing monkey singing the Star Spangled Banner in the States in the time it took me to find a specialy item here in Germany. Regardless, I went to one store. Sorry, no replacement bulbs. Store two, no replacement bulbs. So, I went to the home improvement store. SCORE, replacement bulbs, woo hoo. Yeah, that was still too easy. Of course it was the wrong bulb. Decide to wait on Herr Hubby to get home and help return wrong bulb and get the wrong one. We go back to the one store, sorry, this is all we have, however, you can buy these nice LED lights, which are replacing the old ones, which are becoming obsolete, hence the shortage of replacement bulbs. Sigh. I don't want to spend the equivalent of $20 on Christmas lights. I HAVE lights, I just need one bulb. ONE FRIGGIN BULB. Different store, nope. Different home improvement store. Nope. Now, my husband and two kids have been on this trip with me and it's already an hour into the search for the single bulb. Kids are bickering, husband is grumpy, and that creepy eye twitch I get when frustrated is twitching away. We decide to buy the damn LED lights because we should be able to use them a while and, well, there are no bulbs for our perfectly fine lights at home. Hubby asks if I need anything else from the store. Do they sell Valium here? No? My four year old picked that exact moment to pitch the mother of all tantrums. What do I do? Excuse myself from the situation and walk to the toilet display section halfway across the store and do deep breathing exercises. Really. I would suggest it to anyone. There's something quite soothing about it although, the workers tend to give a wide berth to the foreign woman muttering near the toilets doing Lamaze breathing exercises while cursing, "A single damn bulb. ONE!" over and over again. In the end, the LED lights are still in their box on my kitchen counter because I could not bother to put them on. That fun task will happen tonight, with a glass of wine, to be sure. At least I can spare myself this nightmare next year. Right? RIGHT? ;O)
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