Dubai Consumer Mirror

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Home Improvement

My bones are aching and my muscles are soar. I am running out of elbow grease faster than anyone can say supercalifredgalisticaxpeialidocious.

No, i did not head back to the gym (i wish)...


In anticipation and preparation for our first babygirl who's ETA is this coming February, Mrs. M. "suggested" that we move to a bigger flat. So I informed and literally begged our landlord for a bigger flat and thankfully we managed to score a really good 3br in the same building.

The place is great, huge reception area, very large rooms …bla bla bla

Anyhow, we vacated 2 days ago and i have to wait till Monday to request Etisalat to transfer my ADSL account (lets see how long that will take). Cable TV is half way there. Orbit is working, but Showtime isn't .. thats Showtime for ya!

Tonight is our 3rd night in the new house, loads of boxes to unpack, new curtains to order, frames to mount and plenty of newer things that my wife...er... I mean, WE need to buy.

In the midst of all this I noticed something about myself; I realized that I might suffer from a sever case of OCD! (google the acronym if you don't know what that means).


I never imagined that I have, and kept, so much JUNK just laying there in the house for all these years.

I won't even go near my wife's "valuable" possessions and belongingness - cause i really don't feel like having all da ladies in da house going all Oprah on me.

I will just talk about us, men, the hommies, mochachos or what ever you wanna nickname the masculine gender.

These are some of the self observations i've noticed... on and btw, I found several guys doing the same thing .. so, I think it’s just a guy thang. (no OCD .. thank the heavens!)

Or is it? Guys check this and let me know ..

1. What’s up with our (men's) fascination with empty card board boxes and used sheets of bubble wrap? My entire house was moved in less than 8 hours by Unions Movers (great service btw and very good prices). None of the old boxes which i've kept all this time were used. They even boxed my empty boxes!

2. Printed material: Why do we insist on keeping all the versions of the Yellow, Blue or Red Pages phone books, business directories or tourists guides? I don't know - maybe its to impress the ladies by showing them stacks and stacks of printed material lined up in your pathetic bookshelf?

I threw away so many old Yellow Pages directories, it will give the Green Peace a pretty darn good reason to camp outside my house in protest!

And all those conference/exhibition brochures, guides and catalogues - throw away immediately! Yalla ..

3. Wires and other electronic devices: I am not talking about a few pieces of cords here, but Miles of them! In all shape, form and color: Electrical, coaxial, digital, airtight, insulated, stripped, optic, USB, fire-wire, serial, parallel, ps2, AUX connections, old Playstatoin game pads (the gray ones) and broken Playstation 2 ones, phone chargers, damaged mobile earphones, your old Nokia 1100, old disposable cameras that you never bothered to develop, remote controls for devices i have no idea where they are ... and a truck load of AAA batteries!

Oh and believe me – I highly doubt that the Intel 486 MMX with 4x CD ROM, 8mb RAM and 14.4 mbps external modem will be any use!


4. Clothes: Dream on Cowboy, you will never get back that fit! Throw away those tight blue jeans - Better yet, place them in a bag with the rest of your wonder years clothing collection, and drop them at the nearest Red Crescent collection point (City Center, Mall of the Emirates..etc).

sheesh…

Anyhow, its getting late and I have to leave the office. I am gonna head to my INTERNET-less home – I have lotsa walls to drill holes into...

ciao

16 Comments:

  • haha, good luck with etisashat

    god, when i moved from dubai to australia, i had soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much stuff. i had to leave tonnes of stuff in dubai ):

    like my tabla ):

    my speakers weight 20 kg, computer is 10 kg, i had like 20 kg of cables, a turntable.
    so much damn stuff

    unlike you i didnt have anywhere near enough bubble wrap.

    By Blogger samuraisam, at December 3, 2005 at 6:19 PM  

  • Good morning mr achey bones. how is it going in the cucumber-flavoured world of gummy bears?
    I hope your shoulders are not aching from drilling into higher-than-your-ladder walls.

    CG

    By Blogger CG, at December 4, 2005 at 9:11 AM  

  • I feel like a piñata

    By Blogger moryarti, at December 4, 2005 at 2:36 PM  

  • I pained a room in the house and had lots to get rid off, I can imagine what you had to go through. Happy Shifting

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at December 4, 2005 at 3:48 PM  

  • mabrook el beit el ydeeed :)))

    congrats on the new house Mr and Mrs M!

    oh man.. i hate moving.. such a hassle, everytime i move (on average once a year) I throw away so much crap.. but it's a necessary part of moving..

    good luck with e-combany

    By Blogger BuJ, at December 4, 2005 at 5:15 PM  

  • Yay, with you on number three - I used to have entire wardrobes full of busted printers, monitors, CD drives, hard disks and untold numbers of phone chargers and kilometers of cables. I have three non-functioning mobile phones in a drawer at my office. I know they'll never work again, but I also know I'll NEVER throw them away. Sad, ain't it!

    By Blogger Keef, at December 4, 2005 at 7:46 PM  

  • i bought 300 feet of network cable because it was 125 dhs at one point, i only ended up using about 10 metres of it.

    By Blogger samuraisam, at December 5, 2005 at 9:03 AM  

  • To my amazing, caring, and most loving husband in the world, i have just read your new post, (after returning from my vacation since i had Saturday & sunday off) unlike many people.

    And i have to congratulate you for having the courage of speaking loudly about an issue that i have been nagging on you to solve (like throwing all useless stuff mentioned by you in the post).

    However for some weird (and sometimes funny) reasons Mr. M. used to always convince himself then me, that noooooooooooooo i cant throw these stuff (like some really old jackets which he never wore for the past 5 years i knew him!!!!) ...

    So i was always like ok ok, fine i'll put them back (Oh and BTW to all married women out there whatever things U KNOW ur husbands wont ever use or even remember that they exist; the best solution is always do ur cleaning and throwing stuff out when HE IS NOT HOME!!! Trust me he would never ever remmeber they even existed..

    Last but not least.. Mr. M. i thank you for taking the lovely apartment, its excatly what i wanted, and for baring with a 7 month, raging hormones, almost sleep deprived, anxious, and ur baby girl keeps kicking the hell out of me.. wife!! I love you .

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at December 5, 2005 at 12:40 PM  

  • Ahhhhhhhh...you are so sweet Mrs.M. Mr M is a lucky man.
    I totally agree with you about throwing their stuff out when they are not around. Later on you will have to do the same with kids toys as they grow out of them (but wont let go!!)
    Wishing you both all the best and of course No.3

    By Blogger CG, at December 5, 2005 at 1:12 PM  

  • Mrs M, CG and all the other ladies in here... hmmmmmmm

    Think of how many pairs of shoes you'll have and whether you would EVER think of throwing (gasp !!)ANY of them out, even after 10 years...

    Well come on.. tell us.. even when you possibly buy a further 50 pairs to add to the 150 pairs already in the closet, would any go out into the trash???

    Moryarti san.. I'm on your side...

    :)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at December 5, 2005 at 4:03 PM  

  • kdd - don't go there buddy! it my neck on the line here :)

    By Blogger moryarti, at December 5, 2005 at 4:13 PM  

  • Congrats on the baby girl. I have 2 girls and now it is just waiting time for them to get old enough to team up with mom and make my life even more grief.

    1 Question. What is supercalifred...?

    Good grief i should be writing something on my own blog but i feel lazy. I think i'll go terroize Mahmood for trying diss UAE bloggers.

    Good grief why am i even writing all this here anyway? Feel free Prof to delete this comment later ;)

    By Blogger Jassim, at December 5, 2005 at 6:02 PM  

  • Moryarti! We're done..

    We just launched a new service for bloggers.. it collects their new posts in one easy to read page. so that readers who want to read blogs from/in a particular country can know what is being posted and go to it. that will surely create more readers for your blog within time. so try it out.. it's http://www.iopblogs.com I hope you like it..

    We're starting with the UAE as the first country. so come in and join us.

    By Blogger YAB, at December 9, 2005 at 2:58 PM  

  • genesis.. interesting that you chose the UAE as the first country.. somehow i thought blogging and the net were international :)

    By Blogger BuJ, at December 10, 2005 at 4:44 AM  

  • Kdd-anon .. Actually you are right, i have about 50 pairs of shoes (maybe more), and i do make it a point to give away (not throw away) the old pairs.... and trust me the pairs i giveaway are not torn, or in bad shape...
    i even giveaway old clothes, or clothes that i dont wear, which are also in good shape.

    More to the point... and i am sure Moryarti would agree to the point that as long as a women works hard and makes money let her feel free to spoil herself to a certain extent!!!

    ps: plus the 50 shoe pairs i also have about 65 bags (which at the moment Moryarti is hassling on how to organize them!!!)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at December 10, 2005 at 1:05 PM  

  • Buj, we chose the UAE because it just happens that our blog is from the UAE, if you paid a visit to the website you would realize that it is created with the world audience in mind.. not a certain location :) and I encourage you to visit the FAQs..

    it's just a way to bring people together.. I hope you like it :)

    By Blogger YAB, at December 10, 2005 at 2:08 PM  

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