You Want Fries With That?



The view from our bedroom on a day when it floods.  Unfortunately when this happens, you do not get to stay home and watch TV all day.

 Everyone has days that try your pationce.  Those days when it seem like nothing goes right, and every time you look up after fixing one problem, another arises?  Generallly you just want to get back in bed, curl up in the fetal position and pretend you never got up.  We had one of those yesterday morning. 

Before we begin, I should remind everyone that it's not abnormal to have a housekeeper here.  After we moved into our giant house, we tried (that is Reyna tried) to maintain the house by herself.  I mean, we had a three bedroom house in Vegas, and it was really no problem to keep up.  The difference is that our new house is five stories tall, and the laundry room is on the fifth floor (fourth floor if you're Vietnamese and count G, 1, 2, 3...).  We spend our lives at home climbing and descending stairs, and are out of breath more than I care to admit.  After a month of playing catch up, we broke down and hired a maid.  Yesterday was Ms. Ha's first day.  It's mildly depressing that a 49 year old woman can handle a job that kicks the butt of two 30 year olds.  She was supposed to come at 7:00 so she could get our house key before we left for work, but I guess she was eager to get started after her tour of our house two days before because she rousted me out of bed at 6:30.  When I opened the door, I noticed that our street was flooded.  This in itself is not cause for panic. We live in the "flooding district."  This means that periodically (depending on the moon) for around four months a year, the street will flood up to about mid calf with river water.  This happens with the tide, so the street will flood for a couple hours and then recede.  Sadly this is the price one pays for a river view and a big house with cheap-ish rent.

So I let Ms. Ha in, and she started cleaning while Reyna and I got ready to leave for work.  I was ready before Reyna, so I went down to start her bike.  There is a process in itself even when it isn't flooded.  Open the front door, walk out, unlock the padlock and take it off the gate, undo the bolt latch, lock the padlock and remove the key, back the bike down into the water, put the kick stand down, walk back up the ramp (without slipping -trickier than it sounds), lock the front door, lock the padlock (on the inside, so it looks like your home), secure the bolt latch, get back on the bike, start it and drive away.  On a flood day there is no way to do this without getting your feet wet. This means you have to bring spare shoes to work, because you don't want to walk barefoot in the water and the street (yuck), nor do you want to sit in wet shoes all day.  This also means driving the motorcycle with flip flops on.  This isn't a big deal on Reyna's bike because hers is a proper scooter.  You dont' stradle it like mine, you sit like you're sitting in a chair.  We'd already agreed that we would ride in together.  Reyna has had some trouble getting her bike to start lately, but we finally figured out how to reliably kick start it when the electric starter isn't working.  I wheeled the bike down the ramp that leads up to our house, through the calf deep water and around the corner to a dry spot where I could kick start it without splashing water all over my jeans.

After about 35 tries to kick start the bike, I realized, as sweat rolled down my nose that I'd left my helmet in the house.  Reyna had already locked up and was standing with her wet feet and rolled up kakhis patiently waiting for me to get the bike started.  I took the key out of the bike, walked back through the water, up the ramp, unlocked the gate padlock, undid the bolt, locked the gate padlock, removed the key, unlocked the front door, kicked off my shoes, walked over the floor that Mrs. Ha had just finished mopping with my wet feet, got my helmet, walked back, put on my shoes, closed the front door, locked it, got on my bike and started backing it down.  As I was backing it down, my foot slipped and I almost fell.  I managed to stay upright, but wrenched my back (ouch).  I put the kickstand down, walked back up the ramp, got the padlock, closed the gate, locked the padlock, relatched the bolt latch and walked the other bike through the water (my bike also has to be kick started) over to where Reyna was standing*.

*Allow me to digress here for just one moment.  On Friday morning, I woke up with a cough and scratchy throat.  This isn't unusual because the air outside is about the same quality as a smoky bar most days.  I get this little bug about every 6-8 weeks and it lasts for 4-5 days.  So here I am sick, coughing, snotty nose, standing in ankle deep water sweating and trying to kick start a motorbike... And people complain when McDonald's won't give them an Egg McMuffin at 9:05 in The States?  Yeah...

"Whatcha wanna do?" I asked.
"Well I gotta get this fixed today because I gotta to get to work tomorrow while you're gone." Did I forget to mention that?  I have to leave town on Wednesday for work and will not be back until Thursday evening.
"OK... I'll give you a ride.  It's fine if I'm late."

I left Reyna with the bike, and rode through the water to the mechanic we've been using lately.  There was only one guy there, so I had to wait for a few minutes while he finished fixing a car tire before yelling over to his buddy across the street.  His buddy followed me back to the house (how's that for service, they come to you).  I showed him what was wrong.  He tried to start it a few times, jumped back on his bike and drove away.  We stood there looking at each other.  As we waited, our neighbors and landlords noticed we hadn't left and came outside.  I showed them what was wrong with the bike and asked if they could help us translate to the mechanic that the problem isn't the battery but the alternator.  They smiled and nodded, but in that "I-don't-know-what-you're-saying-but-it-would-be-rude-to-tell-you-no" way that happens all the time*.  The mechanic returned a few minutes later with some tools and removed the battery from the bike.  I called one of my Vietnamese speaking work friends and asked him to explain the problem to the mechanic.  After that conversation, and ten minutes of charades-playing, I thought he understood.  Then he took the battery, put it under his seat and drove away.  I turned, stunned, to our landlord.

"No worry, no worry. He come back!" he said when he saw my concerned look.  "He go to get friend push bike ."

*Tangential Note that Bears Mentioning - Giving your mobile number over the phone to a Vietnamese person is one of the most prevalent (and irritating) examples of this phenomenon.  In the US, there is a rhythm to the phone number (dat-dat-da...dat-dat-da...dat-da...dat-da).  Here there isn't, mainly because there can be a three digit variation in the length of phone numbers here, so you never know how many digits to tell them at once.  I've tried the US rhythm and they always get it wrong.  Always ALWAYS have them repeat it back to you, especially if they don't get it on the first try and you have to start over.  Example:

Me:  The number is 321 .. 432 .. 66...98  (no this is not my phone number, stalkers)
Them:   Okay  3..2..1..4..2..6..
Me:  No, 4-3-2
Them:  OK, 432...3..2..1..4..2
Me:  No, start over... (rinse, repeat, ad nauseum)

We waited and looked at our watches compusively another ten minutes before he returned with a buddy.  The new guy got on Reyna's bike and steered, while the first mechanic drove his working bike and pushed the non-working bike with his foot.  Vietnamese tow truck in action.

We watched them tool away, and then got on my bike.  There are a couple reasons why we ride Reyna's bike when we go places together.  Hers has a 125cc engine and a more comfortable seat.  My bike only has a 100cc engine and a manual transmission.  This is good because it rarely breaks down and is super cheap to fix, but is murder on the hands and arms in heavy traffic. It also sits up higher than Reyna's bike, which is great when the neighborhood is flooded, but tough to drive slowly with a passenger because of the higher center of gravity.  I was also wearing flip-flops, so I could deal with the flood water, and shifting my bike with flip flops on can be challenging. 

As we turned up an adjacent street, the one that floods the least in our neighborhood, we found our way blocked by a taxi.  I honked.  Nothing.  So I tried to ease between the curb and the taxi*.  When I got to the rear axle of the taxi, the driver decided that would be a good time to move forward.  The tire missed my flip-flopped foot by about 5mm.  As he pulled forward, he also pulled towards me to open up a space on the right side of the car.  We were on the left, and were nearly pinned between the car and the curb.  I managed to back the bike up and get around the right side of the taxi.  Because of all the flooding lately, the edges of the street get slick with algae from the river, and I nearly slipped getting around the other side to.

*Bear in mind that this is the flooding area, therefore curbs are about a foot high to keep water from coming into people's houses.  If you hit it, or get pinned between the curb and another larger object, you are booking a one-way ticket to broken ankle city, and get river water in the wound.

After forty minutes we managed to escape our neighborhood.  The next task was to get Reyna to work.  We both have to cross a bridge to get to our respective offices, which is currently under repairs (if you've been following along lately, you'll remember that fact from the New Normal story).  Traffic is unbearable in the mornings.  Between going less than one mile an hour, you are constantly choked by exhaust from the tens of thousands of motorbikes trying to cross in one lane of traffic.  We have started taking a different way to work, which is slightly longer, but the traffic moves a little more freely. 

I remembered as we went under the offending bridge that my bike didn't have enough gas to get either of us to work, so we had to stop.  Getting gas here is not like getting gas in America.  There is no queue.  There is a pump operator, and whoever can get closest and have his/her gas cap removed first gets gas.  It's like a chess match deciding where to pull up and when to remove the gas cap.  People are constantly cutting in front of you.  We're getting better at it, but by no means are we experts.

We managed to fill up in under five minutes, and were soon back on the road.  As we turned in the direction of work, we found that the new street was flooded in much the same way as our neighborhood.  What began then was another forty minutes of choked gridlock traffic.  This traffic had the added benefit of being fraught from beginning to end with floodwater.  In our neighborhood, the flood water is consdidered "clean."  We don't live on a busy street, and we're very close to the river.  This was an altogether different experience.  The puddles were approaching black with grime and each had a slick of oil on top that reflected colorfully in the morning sun.  We were also constantly starting and stopping, so my left hand was constantly in a state of operating the bike's clutch.  After about ten minutes I felt like my hand was going to fall off.  After 20 minutes my hand was having an out of body experience. After 30 minutes, every time I worked the clutch, it felt like lightning was shooting up my arm. My shoes and feet were soaked and freezing because we were moving.  People were dodging around us, getting up on the sidewalks, which are cracked and potted, so water splashed on us from passing commuters.  My biggest fear was falling.  With Reyna on the back of the bike, the stability factor had decreased markedly.  It's not easy to ride slowly with a passenger on the back, especially in traffic, with cars and bikes everywhere. Try it sometime.  It's not fun.  We weaved around, and I wore a fair amount of tread off my flip flops, but we managed to make our way through.

With relief, we turned onto the the big highway and got out of the traffic long enough for me to shake and flex my clutch hand.  We fought the rush hour traffic downtown (which was normal bad, not really bad) and I dropped Reyna off at school.  I then circled the block, and backtracked for ten minutes so I could get myself to work.  I collapsed at my desk at 8:30 in the morning and realized it was then time for my day to START.

My hand still hurts...