Life: Idiotropic

GRIPE 1:

I've been complaining for months that our water was barely warm.  My landlord dropped off the water
heater information packet (in Spanish, of course) and told me that may be it's just too cold outside to heat up the water as much as I like.  Months of barely hot and often lukewarm.

Last week I washed my hair 3 times with ice cold water and Arianna did that once.

Yesterday there was no hot water for my shower, none for dishes, none for anything anywhere in the house.


Manuel and Begonia came over.  We looked under the hot water heater and gently pulled on the little black door.  I took out a D battery.

"Do you have this kind of battery?" 
"I think so."

I go into the kitchen, rifle around in the "junk" drawer, and pull out a new Energizer D battery.  I go back to the garage and put it in then closed that little black door.

"Let's try it," suggests Manuel.
"Ok."  I went into the kitchen, turned the water on hot, put my hand under the icy stream and waited.

"It hasn't changed at all," I told Manuel as he puts his hand into the icy water.
"Are you sure?"  He says smiling.  So I put my hand back into the water and it's hot!  Actually hot!  The hottest it's been in months!

Because of one battery.  Who knew that a hot water tank would run off one single battery?

GRIPE 2: 

Today.  Just now.  I checked my local bank online.  The number looked really low.  So I looked at the "detalles."  Today, Iberdrola took 822 Euros from my account for electricity.  2 months of electricity, but even in half, this is Euros!  That's a lot of electricity.  I suppose it's because of the cold winter and the lack of insulation and the windows that let the cold in through cracks and even under doors.  It's 2 months of trying to stay warm.  Ouch. 

See, here, in Spain, just like in Germany, you give your bank information to businesses and they take out the money you owe - often before you even get the statements in the mail.  It's a horrible system.  Yeah, I'd still have to pay the 822 Euro bill, but at least I wouldn't have a heart attack just by checking my account balance.