we rent. so, we don’t have nice hardware. or closet doors. or kitchen appliances. i’m not complaining because we do have lots of sunlight and we don’t ever have unwanted bugs that many city dwellers have. and i understand, i think, because if i were the owner and i didn’t ever plan to live in my rental property and nobody in my family planned to live there, i wouldn’t give a crap what kind of appliances or hardware i installed. here are the things we have that are cheap and stupid. please note that not everything cheap is stupid. dried garbanzo beans from the co op are cheap and they are very tasty and good and not stupid.
hello mudflap girl!
1. replacement toilet handle is made of plastic and i don’t know why he bothered. why didn’t he just rig up a popsicle stick or just a long chain? he could have said, just leave the top of the toilet off and pick up the big bulb every time you want to flush. it won’t kill you to do that. no, it won’t. this will be a new thing. everybody will be doing it. leaving the top off, picking up the bulb. your friend comes over and says, hey, the top of your toilet tank is off. you say, yes! it is! and they say, well, that’s fucked up. then you tell them to drop dead. and they leave. and they’re not your friend anymore, so they aren’t using your toilet and having smartass things to say about it. problem solved. meanwhile, what i really want is the mudflap girl handle.
2. drain plug attached within. this is ridiculous and infantilising. our landlord replaced our drain with this piece of technology that prevented us from picking the stopper up to clear out hair and other such things that clog the flow. we could not take it out and remove the clog, so the water gradually lost its ability to leave the sink. we did not enjoy this. eventually i got fed up and broke the thing off. when he came over we said, please don’t replace it with that kind again. we want to be able to take the plug out. he pretended that there had never been a time in the history of this apartment, of brooklyn or of civilization when plugs were not attached to the sink. in the end, he said we should just get a rubber plug. so i told him to get us one. i like it, but i am always afraid i will drop something valuable down the sink when the plug is not engaged. it is usually not engaged.
3. fawcett handle that is no longer attached and we are using a pair of plyers instead. you can imagine how much i enjoy turning hot water on and off with a pair of cheap plyers. sometimes i’m too lazy and think, oh, i can wash this greasy dish with cold water (the hot water side requires plyers). you could call this a negative prediction about the future, and you would be right: i know our landlord will come in and put another cheap-ass, ill-fitting handle on and say, see! it works. then i will try to help him understand that we, too, have put the handle on and it works. for all of five minutes. he will not grasp this.
to be continued
Filed under: cheap, cheap-ass, lame!, mudflap girl, lists
