Monday

Monday is part of my weekend.  I spent most of the day wandering around trying to get the last few things before I’m done outfitting my apartment.  Today made me feel like I’m a part of a big practical joke that everybody is in on except for me.  Real “Twilight Zone” material.  For example, I was at a store called “Loft” (an extremely sad excuse for a Target) today and spent the equivalent of about $16 on a shower curtain.  When I was at the counter to purchase this very expensive piece of crappy plastic with “shampoo, H2O, and sponge” written all over it I asked where I could get rings to hold it up to the curtain rod.  The response I got was that I couldn’t get the  rings at  that store.  They sell curtains but not the equipment to mount the curtains.  That’s “joke’s on you” #1.  At that same Target’s inadequate stepsister visit, I was looking for a cutting board that was big enough to cover my sink so that I could expand my counter space enough to actually cut something.  I wanted a cutting board that was at least 42cm long.  The biggest cutting board they had was 40 cm and would fall into my sink if I tried to set it across.  I realize that I could just turn the cutting board, but I held out in hopes that I’ll find what I want.  The point is, that I was 2cm short of what I wanted.  Seriously…3/4 of an inch away COME ON!  The good news is that my bathroom smells like the poison that the shower curtain is made out of and I still have only about .8 square feet of functional counter space.

I’m sure that the things that I’m looking for are available and I just don’t know where to look.  There’s an added frustration being completely unable to communicate well enough to get help finding the right places.  In any case, I feel like the kind of “Mall of America” style over-stimulation that I feel constantly here doesn’t happen as often in the US.  We live a life of unparalleled convenience at home.  There’s always a store open that sells almost anything that you could want with respectable quality.  There are so many things here that are poor quality.  Bath towels are thinner than T-Shirts at home and repel water instead of absorbing it.  I’m not just talking about the dollar store bath towels.  Even expensive ones are ridiculous compared to what we can get at home.  I am curious to learn if the cheap construction of those types of materials is because it’s hard to get them all of the way out here or if it’s because of restrictive trade laws.  I feel like things here are just as expensive, if not more, as they were in Hawaii, but the quality is not the same.  In Hawaii, you pay more to get the goods to the island.  Here, you pay a ton and the goods aren’t there.  I think starting a Target out here would be a really good idea.  Starbucks is making it.  Why not Target?  End scene.