Hugo Jonker

Living in a foreign country sometimes has a disadvantage. This is most obvious when you’re trying to interact, and you have to communicate in a foreign language (note: I do not consider English a foreign language — I converse more in English than in Dutch). The handle of the door to the garden broke down. No sweat, call the landlord and have it fixed. Right? Right??

Guess again, Sherlock. I call the agency charged by the landlord with fixing the place. I bravely speak french. I bravely get rerouted to another agency, as “they are no longer in charge of that building”. Cool. Next agency. I bravely re-express my problem (“loquet” is one of the french words for handle, btw). Once they get that my problem concerns my own apartment, and not a communal area, they politely inform me that my own apartment is Not Their Problem(tm). Apparently, they’re in charge of the communal areas of the building.

Okay, no sweat. I managed to use the broken handle to get the door to lock by now, so no hurry. Except that it’s consistently over 30 degrees here for the last weeks — me and whoever happens to stop by are probably sitting in the garden. (Yes I have a garden.) So taking the handle from near the fridge, and holding it against the door to open the door is kind of awkward — and happening way too often.

Mr. Two-Left-Hands to the rescue! As you probably don’t know, I most assuredly have two left hands (although, virtually all the furniture here was assembled by moi-même… perhaps I don’t suck as much as I think). Anyway, I went to a nearby bathroom and garden store, and it just so happened they had a place where they sell handles (and related items) — the quincaillerie (more or less “hardware store”).

Got home, handle fit but had plastic protrusions which didn’t. A bit of filing later, and tadaaa! Door is working again.

Happy me :)