We just moved into a new house (or, more accurately, I should currently say ‘we’re in the process of moving into a new house’) and I kept thinking about how funny it is what gets left behind. I remember the first time I moved houses, from share house to share house, and it always makes me laugh to look back on the things we left behind and the things we took with us. Cutlery, speakers, televisions, coat hangers – you name it, we took it. We were poor, we were students, and we passionately hated any type of tradition.
Moving now, as an adult, things are different. You pay attention to those traditions, those unspoken rules of civilisation, which is why it was so surprising to be in our new home for the first time, sit around the TV, and find we didn’t have a antenna. No, it wasn’t just that we had bad reception, it was that we didn’t have any reception. The previous owners of the home had taken the TV antenna with them. After sitting in shock for a moment, I started to laugh aloud to myself and was given a stern look from my partner.
In an attempt to fix the problem, I spent most of this morning on the phone to different antenna installation companies in Melbourne and have never been so frustrated in my life. Well, that’s a hyperbole, but nevertheless it was very irritating. In fact, after speaking to the third complete dud, I decided to call a friend and complain to her about. As it so happened, she had recently used an antenna specialist in Melbourne, due to storm damage I believe, and so she gave me his number. After a minute of speaking to him, my mood was lifted. He was fabulous. So in the end, a very irritating problem caused me to deal with headache-creating people which ultimately led to a solution. Not a bad outcome, if you ask me.