These are a Few of My Favorite Things, Part I

My semester abroad only has a few gasps left, and most of them involve studying. So instead of doing that, I figured I should hold my life from the past 3+ months up to light.

What I will not miss about Prague:

1) This god damn snow.

The weather in Prague these last few weeks has killed every ounce of good will I've ever had toward snow. I was cool with flakes for about an hour after I got back from Ireland, but it did not take long before I was crunching around with my head in my chest bitching about how cold it is outside.

The anecdote: two weeks ago, after I landed in Prague, I ran into my buddy Sam at the airport. It was snowing, so Sam, someone who I thought was his sister but turned out to be his girlfriend, and I took a cab to Charles Bridge (you literally cannot win in that situation--they looked kinda alike, so I asked they were brother and sister, and they were not; what if I had asked if she was his girlfriend and she turned out to be his sister? What's more awkward? I have no frame of reference on the latter. Lemme know.) because the two lovebirds wanted to snap a few pictures of the wintery fairy land amassing itself on the most famous bridge in Prague. I tagged along, and it was pretty beautiful.

At first glance it looks as if Goodnight Moon made an appearance in Prague; much to my chagrin, it was a mere melted snowflake on my lens.

Fuckin' magestic right?

But then I walked home because I had no money, and over the course of my mile and a half trek home, I remembered why I am not a fan of snow.

When many people (I'd go so far as to say most people) hear the word snow, they think of something along the lines of this:



When I hear the word snow, I think of something more along the lines of this:

Lumpy, ass-dirty, brown-grey crap that lingers on the streets for god damn ever and makes even the most basic task an insurmountable hassle.

Over the past two weeks, I have achieved less because snow has achieved the following: 1) getting in my shoes 2) indirectly creating a thin layer of sand and salt on the floor of my room so now I have to do the stop-lift-brush-the-bottom-of-my-foot manuever every time I stand up 3) getting in my shoes 4) turning staircases into sledding hills 5) making me want to stay inside and eat chocolate.

But at least it hasn't started snowing in DC and NYC right? ...Oh.

2) The inability to fully express myself to other human beings.

Having lived in Prague for 14+ weeks, and having taken (and not failed--fingers crossed!) a semi-rigorous Czech language course, I've finally developed an appreciation of the Czech language. I think I can pinpoint my transformation to a day about three weeks ago when I stumbled upon this hole in the wall antique shop--I'm pretty retro--and stopped in for a gander.

There was some cool shit there--mostly old, dirty shit--and at some point I lifted up an old, dirty, tin Pilsner Urquell sign and said to the jolly old guy in the corner, "Kolik stoji?" ("How much?"). He blurted a number back at me and I understood because I have numbers pretty down-pat, though I'm still convinced 9, 10, 19, 90, 900 and all the 20s are phonetically fucking identical. I also understood that I would not give him half of what he was asking, so I set the sign down, and as I expected, the man then gestured and breathed some sentences of Czech that were absolutely meaningless to me (though he was definitely saying, "but for you, special price: [10% less than what I just said]"). I looked back at him like a discombobulated labrador.

The fuck did you just say to me old timer?

I then launched into a grammatically incorrect explanation of how I am American and how I exclusively speak English. Turns out, he spoke about as much English as I spoke Czech, so for about 15 seconds there we were just pointin around and gesticulatin and shit, but eventually he was able to say to me, "You have very good [Czech] pronounciation." This easily could have just been a ploy to get me to like him, feel sorry for him because he sits in a musty room all day, and buy something (it worked), but even so, since that day I've spoken and listened to Czech in a markedly more enthusiastic way.

But I haven't really gotten any better at understanding Czech.

I've noticed lately that I make a very strong effort to use and correctly pronounce Czech when I initiate a conversation (e.g. Kolik stoji? - How much?; Kde je ___ ? - Where is ____ ?; Jak se mate? - How are you? -- complex, important shit here, folks), but literally every single time someone says something back to me in Czech (which is always because of my exceptional pronounciation), I, again, look back at them like a confused labrador puppy and, in a defeated, begging-ass tone, mumble, "Anglicky?" ("English?"), to which some people can respond. Most just shake their heads and look back at me like a confused Czech labrador, though, so I usually end up back at square one.

Bottom line, I'm really lookin' forward to hearing the fat young guy at Pugsley's say "WutcanIgetcha" with half a chicken roll in his mouth.
3) Having the nearest ATM be a tram ride away.

Now, having to take a tram or even walk 10 minutes when its 40-60 degrees and sunny outside really isn't so bad. But having to wait for a tram in the freezing-ass cold on a road covered in grey-brown lumps that runs parallel to a fucking river is bad.

There has been at least one day during these past two weeks when I opted to just not eat or do anything all day because the prospect of going to the ATM seemed so dreadful. I know that's pathetic, but I just don't understand why grocery stores or Czech bodegas (called Potraviny's, if you're curious) don't have ATMs. On some of these really cold days I would confirm upwards of a $7 additional ATM charge just so I don't have to spend more than 30 seconds outside. But you know what they say, one man's minor problem is another man's multi-million dollar Eastern European start-up business. Don't say I didn't warn you.

4) The running noise my toilet makes after I flush.

You know the (totally) insignificant issues humans develop with their habitat that over time begin to eat away at the very core of their existence? For example, when I lived in was occasionally in my sophomore year dorm room, Finlay 423, I hated with every bone in my body when, the few mornings (particularly weekends) I slept in there, my charming roommate Gus would wake up no later than 10:30a, and something that almost always resembled this would follow:

Gus: Yo, Mikey, you up?
Mikey: No.
Gus: How the fuck did I get home last night, dude?

I'd come to right around here.

Mikey: [Chuckle] I dunno. [Possibly mentions where he last saw Gus].
Gus: Definitely went to Pugsley's [chuckle].
Mikey: [Chuckle].

10 seconds of silence.

Mikey: Alright, I'm up.
Gus: [Big chuckle] What the fuck happened YOU last night, dude?

And so on.

I loathed this, not only because it was genuinely frustrating to have your sleep intermittantly disturbed by the same brand of noise, but also simply because when humans get irritated by confined spaces (and Finlay 423 was a confined space), we channel our irritation into neurosis over a single meaningless event. And when this event so much as rears the tippy-top of its annoying-ass head, we go fucking nuts inside.

I've noticed that for me, when I live with other people, my single meaningless event is triggered by another person's behavior (usually Gus'). When I don't cohabitate, my single meaningless event is triggered by things that involve the word flush.

#1: Mice, breifly, because I find this particularly amusing: After Mikey and Gus went home for the rest of the summer at the beginning of this past July, I had the second floor of 2471A Crotona all to myself. And I really liked it for a while (not seeing shirtless Gus in his pajama pants sprawled out on our uncomfortable RHAMCO futon was a big, short-run improvement); but after about 3 weeks, I became borderline insane.

Too convenient.

You see we had this mouse problem since the day we moved in. Since then, try as I might with traditional traps, glue traps, varying baits, pellets (you name it, the latino guy at the corner hardware store said, "the best," and I bought it), I could not exterminate those fucking rodents. Now, I won't try to be green or tough or whatever you'd call not thinking mice are repulsive vermin, because they are. Repuslive, vile, loaf-of-bread-nibbling, stovetop-defecating vermin. But in the grand scheme of things, mice really aren't that bad. Just don't leave any food out, Windex the mouse shit all over your counter before you cook, and let it be.

Fast-forward to July 19th, 2010 at 10:45 PM, and let it be is the farthest thing from reality.

I'm in my room, probably making a list, when I hear the all-too-familiar faint scratching noise coming from the kitchen, which signified that a mouse just crawled up or down the backside of my oven. "Those fucking bastards," I said to myself, "freestyle shitting all over the god damn place."

"Not tonight."

Next thing I know I'm on all fours on my kitchen floor (in my underpants) wagging a pair of barbeque tongs back and forth underneath the oven because for some delusional reason I believed I could not only succeed at flushing this creature out of its hiding place, but that once flushed, I could whack-a-mole the motherfucker with the large wooden spoon I was holding in my free hand. Let me tell you from experience: not only is what I just described physiologically impossible, but any mouse's speed and agility outmatches the brute strength of a husky, half-naked guy armed with cooking utensils.

I was driven so mad by the mouse in my house that this sort of behavior became customary for about 3 weeks. I was so obsessed by this creature that I took the time to figure out the 15 minute time frame in which he was most likely to come out (10:17-10:32 PM), and every night I waited in the kitchen with a wooden spoon in each hand, ready to do battle with Mr. Mouse.

He won those battles. But I won the war.

Pellets, my friends, are the name of the game. They took an extra two weeks to kick-in, but once I came back from my Lollapalooza trip in August, Mr. Mouse was no longer in the house.

And a while ago I was gonna say something about something else that incorporates the word flush. Here goes:

#2: I have an en-suite bathroom. It's fantastic. Except for the toilet flushing mechanism:

Dearest NVTBS reader, allow me to introduce to you my current object of untamable neurosis:

I hear this shit in my sleep. Day in, night out, day in, night out, my toilet sounds like it is urinating into itself.

See what's goin' on here is that the flush pad gets hung up in the open position as soon as it's pressed, but after you initiate a flush, there's a period of about 11 seconds where the pad is in a fixed position (ensuring a thorough flush). So naturally (this has to be animal instinct at work), after I take a piss, I don't want to stand near where I just pissed. You don't see dogs step down into their pee pools, do you? No, they think that shit is gross too.

So I walk out of the bathroom, turn the faucet on, and wash my hands. The faucet drowns out the running toilet, so I wipe hands and exit. 20 seconds later, once I've settled into my chair or bed, I realize that my fucking toilet is making that fucking noise again. So I have to unsettle, stand up, walk to where I just peed, and do this:

You see how little pressure was just applied to silence that toilet? I could whisper at the flush pad and the thing would unjam.

Now I'm sure you're saying to yourself, "Marty, you are crazy as a fucking loon. This is the most insignificant, fruitless worry that could possibly have."

Maybe, but consider this: I would gander that I have to walk back into the bathroom to mute my toilet 5 to 7 times a day.  That's 35-50 times per week. Up to 200 times per month. Possibly 700 total extraneous bathroom visits over the course of this semester. Assuming I spend an extra 30 seconds on each trip, that's a total of...it does not matter; my toilet annoys me on a very regular basis, and if it weren't the toilet, it would most definitely be something else (like the way my futon-chair gradually stretches out from underneath me when I sit in it for prolonged periods of time airing toilet grievances on my blog...)

Look forward to my next entry, Things I Will Miss About Prague, most of which have to do with carbohydrates.

If reading a list of things I don't like to do has you down, find solace in these two songs (I couldn't find .MP3s so here are links to their respective blog posts).

Ellie Goulding (covering Rihanna) - Only Girl (In the World)

I have a monstrous crush on Ellie Goulding.

5oh! - Home Alone (Christmas Dubstep Remix)

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me: whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp.

PS.

5) Doing laundry.

6) Breakfast.