“Fight Against Stupidity And
Bureaucracy”
When I was
writing the post “When One Door Shuts
Another One Closes” a couple of days ago it reminded me of a short time I
spent on a very small island in the West Indies. I was there with a couple of
colleagues to reconnoiter the area for a small development that was being
planned.
We were
there for four or five days (I can’t exactly remember, it was a long time ago)
but I had rented a little island house for us. It was a nice place, spotlessly
clean and had everything we needed. There was no air conditioning but there
were huge ceiling fans so it was comfortable enough.
The only
problem was that the net on the screen door into the main living room from the
patio had been torn by whoever was in the house previously and not repaired, It
was just a little tear on the bottom right corner where someone had accidently
put their foot through it, but it was more than enough to allow the dreaded mosquitoes
access any time they wanted. And they wanted access most of the time!
I reported
the problem to the guy in charge and he said that he would get their
maintenance people to look after it. Sounded good, and I’m sure he meant every
word of it, but I had some experience of Caribbean island life and let’s just
say urgency is definitely not one of the things they major in. Life on all the
islands is very relaxed and easy
going, and in my opinion all the better and healthier for it.
So
realizing help would not be at hand during our short time in the house I had a
look round the kitchen for something I could use to fix the problem myself. I
finally found part of a role of duck tape and a few other bits and bobs. It took me a number of attempts, the
air was so hot and humid that it was extremely difficult to get the tape to
stick to the net and the door frame. But eventually I managed it.
A pretty
job it was most definitely not, but I slid the door screen closed, got myself a
cold beer from the refrigerator and sat back in one of the living room chairs
to admire my hard work and ingenuity.
And then
along cam Bill and something like this happened. Some days you just can’t win!
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