I am still in recovery mode and Big Daddy had to travel to BFE today for an overnight. He got all the bags down from the top of the closet and I am charged with the beginning of the packing to go home. I swear there is something wrong with me. Whenever things get unpacked or pulled out there is this huge disconnect between what I am physically seeing and what I remember as packed away.
I have the most fucked over luggage ever. In my mind it is great stuff, on the apartment floor it is raggedy ass ugly. Okay, we can't really count the 2 huge phoney Wenger bags, the ones that BD wrote his name on all 4 sides. We also have my falling apart Tumi bag, yeah, yeah they fix them for free-just not in China. Then we have the Briggs and Riley duffel that seemed like a good idea at the time. You can pack for an entire family in that baby including your 2nd cousins, and I am talking their bodies. And it is guaranteed for damage repairs forever. Problem is it takes 4 Chinese guys to pull it to the taxi and it does not have a telescoping handle, it has a strap. Which brings us to the Wenger rolling computer case that will actually roll down the smallest aisle on a plane but which is so awkward in shape I can not get it into the overhead compartments.
I want new luggage.
There was an article in the China Daily this week that all name brand manufacturers are raising their prices here in good old Shanghai. Their market research shows that the more the items cost the more the Chinese buyers covet them. Raise the price and sell more goods.
As I have no clothes that fit and not much to take home I should just put my shit in a cardboard box like everyone and shut the hell up.
Funny of the day is really sad, BD's new boss (4 months so not that new) is going home the same time we are. Because he has to move his family here, this is not their first ex-pat assignment. Can't talk too much about that because BD still works there but just a few hints. Boss asked BD for quarters, BD asked why he needed quarters. Boss needs them to call his wife when he gets to the US, you know pay phone. WTF, he did not know his International phone worked in the US and this is his second trip back? He did not know how to put Skype on his work computer so BD put it on and tried to get it started but the Boss did not have his password, only his US based wife has that. Boss can only live in a ground floor unit in Shanghai, per the wife, and Friday he found out HR has no place for his family to live when he returns. His Visa was never completed and he cannot return without a resident or new temp Visa. His kids are supposed to start school one week after they all return with no home, no Visas and no going to see the newest Harry Potter movie. Because his kids will only watch movies at the movie theater and they want to watch it with English dialogue. This is gonna be fun.
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I am beginning to have a bit more respect (raising the level to -200 in a possible score of 1000) for my ex sister-in-law. Her husband was a merchant banker and she schlepped her four children, her husband, their dog, two cats, and a maid from Jersey to London to Japan to New York back to Jersey over the course of 15 years. Plus she had to play the corporate wife. Plus there were the summers at "Chappy". (Chappaquiddick. I just threw up a little.) Still. That was one hell of a lot of moving around.
ReplyDeleteIf she did it without someone holding her hand give her another 100 points. If the maid stayed the whole time deduct 50 points.
ReplyDeleteIn London she had:
ReplyDelete- An American au pair
- A babysitter for the two youngest
- A maid
- Another maid for the heavy work
- The maid's husband for the really, really heavy work.
- Only mentioned once and fleetingly: bodyguards to take the kids to school so they wouldn't get kidnapped.
The au pair got to do things like plan cycling trips in Holland for the oldest child, find a chamber music group to play at the Christmas open house.
When I arrived for a visit, it was in the middle of Second Child's birthday party and SIL's mother thought I was the nanny to one of the other little girls. Always nice to be made welcome.
Our luggage is so fucked we are going to buy Rimowa but we hear that at Vienna they have men with axes just waiting for this stuff to come through on the conveyor belts.
ReplyDeleteI have heard of the Rimowa but never a good field review. Fell for too much pricey luggage that just did not do the job. I will say the Wenger wheels are like driving an expensive car, just wonderful.
ReplyDelete