Random rants: The mundanity of adulting

Warning: This is going to be a rant on several first world problems I'm grappling with. While I am aware of that, I feel overwhelmed and need to spout this out.

It is a Sunday afternoon, and I feel frustrated. Frustrated because I haven't been able to get any work done all day, and now I'm listening to this annoyingly smug service person who has come to fix my washing machine. He tells me: No water should fall on these buttons, Ma'am. Obviously, if you let it get exposed to water, it'll stop working.  I feel like ripping my hair out in frustration: How is this a reasonable expectation for a washing machine? It's not like I poured a bucket of water on the panel. But when I'm taking wet clothes out, water drops are bound to fall on it. I try not to lose my temper as he patronizingly lectures me on rust and voltage fluctuations and other 'here-be-dragons' before he makes his pitch for buying AMC for the machine. He manages to contradict himself in every other sentence, and I don't know if I am more annoyed by the poor design of the washing machine or by his attitude.

Of late, my life has been chock full of such experiences. Just a few days ago, the kitchen sink was leaking, and all the stuff in the cupboard underneath was sopping wet. The plumber deigned to visit, and then tells us that we mustn't pour a lot of water into the sink. He said, and I quote, "You should slowly pour water little by little". I wanted to laugh at the madness of this. This is a SINK! It ought to be designed exactly for the one purpose that it wasn't serving. Where else are we supposed to wash vessels then? He didn't have an answer to that, and left after reiterating his instructions on how to pour water into the sink. Bonus task, we had to clean up the entire cupboard underneath.

Before this, I spent twenty days trying to get an internet connection installed. It involved umpteen calls to customer care, and then finally someone turned up, only to tell us that they could not give us a fiber connection due to some wiring issues in the building. This, after they had conveniently taken a 6 month advance payment as the first step to procuring a new connection. After several days of wrangling with the system, we finally managed to actually get a new connection.

Ever since covid, I have been ordering vegetables online, and suddenly the vendor decides that they will "go green". As a result, I get 10kgs of mixed vegetables dumped into one cloth bag. Chillies, ladies finger, beans, cluster beans and every other green vegetable. Oh, I have to jump for joy at the verdure of green and then scramble through it for a good hour separating them. Despite a bunch of complaints to customer care, they refuse to do anything about this. I switch to a second vendor, who ships a kilogram of absolutely sour inedible green grapes to me, and then tells me that it isn't grape season now, and therefore, it is reasonable to get sour grapes. Oh, yes, milord. Completely my fault for ordering the grapes. Not yours for listing it on your inventory. Then, I switch to a third vendor, who takes an entire list from us, and in the end delivers four of ten items citing that he didn't have stock. Maybe it's time to grow my own vegetables.

Oh, I still haven't told you about the kitchen chimney dripping oil onto the stove. And the chimney vendor has not turned up for two months. The electrician has become a part of our inner circle of connections now, and he has visited us more times than our own parents. Each time, just looking at the wiring gives me a headache, such is the shoddiness of the work. I am surprised that even this much is working. The way the wiring is, I'd expect us to be living without electricity.

Then, there is the current saga of false triggers of light switches, as a result of which we end up waking up in the dead of night, to find the lights on. Let there be light, the switch decides. The geyser that we meticulously turn on first thing in the morning turns off mysteriously, and we're left with cold water.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Every other day, something doesn't work. Something breaks. I feel so overwhelmed. I plan my day, and then a hundred things get in the way. Time drains out like water from a sieve, and I am left with the residue of unsolved problems. All I want is to work, and then get a bit of quiet time with a book. Instead, I neither get any work done nor relax, and end up frustrated about annoying nuisances such as these. The more I grow up, the more life seems to revolve around such aspects, and the more overwhelmed I feel. Sigh!

Anyway, there's a rant for you. Till the next time. :)