P.S. Other Exciting News

I get my real work car tomorrow. Bye, bye little French car with the oh-so-easy automatic transmission. Hello, brand-new German car with the left-hand manual transmission. Just when I’ve almost got the hang of driving on the other side of the road, roundabouts and reading the damn road while I drive… I now have to get used to shifting with the wrong hand! *headdesk*

Also, in the other exciting news category, one of my new British friends has solved the Egyptian mystery of my heating timer. After I received an £80 gas bill (roughly $120 for one month), I had a bit of a Come To Jesus phone call with British Gas. I actually got a human being with a brain who was nice enough to suggest that my bill was so high because even though I had my thermostat turned down during the day, I had my heat set on “Constant”. I didn’t even bother explaining that in America your heat is either on, or its off. We do not have a system where there are 87 million buttons to push and dials to turn and whanot. Even old American thermostats just have a little lever (on, off, auto) and a dial (with real Fahrenheit temperatures!!)

Somehow my friend was able to use his Y chromosome powers for good versus evil and decipher the hieroglyphics enough in order to set the blasted thing up properly. I was was doing the Shamon! happy dance all over my house last night when I came home and then listened to the boiler do its turning on gurgly-gurgle precisely at 19 o'clock like it was supposed to. Happy, happy, joy, joy! I can now afford to eat again as I won’t be spending all my £££ on UK utility bills!

Speaking of o'clocks, I just love saying things like, “Let’s schedule that meeting at 15 o'clock”. I have pointed out many times how weird it is that UK is on military time - only to be corrected and told that its not “military time” - its just 24hour clock time. Toma-to, To-mah-to. Thanks to the movie STRIPES, it will always be military time to me, and accompanied in my head by the “Doo-wah-ditty-ditty-dum-ditty-do” song. What’s really cool is when it turns midnight and my microwave, oven and alarm clock all say that its 00:00 o'clock. It’s zero o'clock! It’s none o'clock! *Sigh* Yes, I do happen to be very easily amused, thank you.

Federman out - for reals this time.