Advantages of a Broken Potty

Putting Up With It
When we moved into our apartment in mid-May one of the things we discovered as we were settling in was that the toilet seat was considerably loose. So loose that occasionally if one were to reach for something while seated, the seat would flop over toward the side and threaten a pinch. We never actually got a pinch but the threat was there and the mere thought made for a less than comfortable session. Mr. "Fix Everything" Bill took a brief look at it, saw the bolts were corroded and unmovable and decided to wait. It's not so bad. Maybe it'll get better by itself.

Not having the greatest confidence in our Spanish language skills we hesitated to report this matter to the landlord for repair. I mean we can make our way through restaurant menus, shop in a grocery store, get a haircut, buy train tickets and ship at the post office in Spanish but since "potty" is a personal and private area we remained silent about the problem and suffered through it. Until...

The Breaking Point
On July 4th we had a party for all of the UNF crowd plus Americans from other universities we met here in Sevilla who are also doing research in the archivo. They weren't aware of our malfunctioning potty seat and hadn't learned to make only small, slow moves so that it wouldn't slip off to one side and threaten to bite. We discovered on the morning of the 5th of July that it wasn't just loose but had broken free. Someone had probably slipped completely off to one side and being embarassed had not reported the incident. (Note to self: Our discussion of to whom this may have happened and how was interesting but shall remain private.) Since the seat was now free of its hinges on both sides it was perched rather precariously upon the bowl and could slip to either side or to the front without warning or provocation. Enough! A report must be made.

The Surprise
I know the title of this blog is "Advantages of a Broken Potty" and I am getting there so bear with me. We chickened out on calling the landlord and after more dicsussion decided to enlist the help of Karen's professor, Dr. Francis, who has near native Spanish skills and is our liaison with the landlord, to make the report. Surely someone with a Ph.D and near perfect Spanish could figure out how to solve our dilemma. He sent an e-mail on Monday and we waited for a response. It came on Tuesday.

I entered the apartment after joining the group for "Onces". I realized the door was unlocked, a light was on and the air conditioner was running. Knowing I hadn't forgotten any of those three I immediately knew someone was there. I called out Hola! A response came from the bathroom. There was Antonio, the landlord, in our bathroom, perched on the bidet installing a new toilet seat. I wish I had taken a photo.

We exchanged pleasantries and after a few minutes I decided to practice my Spanish and arrange an appointment to check out of our apartment on July 15th. "Estaremos dejando el 15 de Julio". His immediate response, with a smile, was "No es posible". I was confused and it took a bit of back and forth for me to realize that what we thought we had rented for two months was really rented for only eight weeks, 56 days instead of 61 days. Instead of having eight more days we had only three left. Antonio explained he has five other apartments in the area available and will gladly rent us one for the additional five days for only 410€, about $560. Yippee?

No not really. Only one has a telephone and Internet and it is across the river and a 25 minute walk to the archivo, 20 more than our current location. Have I mentioned how hot it is here? Plus we have gotten very comfortable here after almost eight weeks and have stuff spread around in every drawer, shelf and cabinet. We had made a list of six more things we wanted to do before leaving Sevilla, we hadn't yet been to the post office to ship our packages, etc. Packing hadn't really made it to the "to do" list yet. We weren't ready to leave five days early, were we? Plus I didn't want to pay that much for something I thought I already had.

Advantage and Opportunity
After mulling it over I decided to seize the opportunity to move on, travel south to Rota Naval Air Station, check in and wait for our ride back to the States...early. Karen called me at 2:30 to tell me she was coming home for lunch and bringing three friends if we had enough to eat. I fixed three more sandwiches and waited to tell her the "news".

Her first reaction to the situation was disbelief, there is a mistake. Nope, no mistake, we have to move. She started getting online and checking local hotels so she could work in the archivo a few more days. After a few minutes and discussion over lunch she too realized we have an opportunity. I should have known she would view the opportunity differently though.

Karen got online again and began to search for hotels along the southern coast of Spain, beaches on the Mediterranean where we could use those "lost" five days. I began having nightmares while awake, still having vivid memories of 16 days trudging through Germany and France, lugging four humongous suitcases plus other paraphernalia. I wasn't looking forward to a repeat of that in southern Spain. Within a few minutes, fortunately the nightmare faded.

Searching the web for hotels Karen realized it is Summer and the annual en masse trek to the beaches has begun all over Europe. Hotels are not to be had, so we agreed to head to Rota, get a place to stay on base, rent a car and take day trips along the coast of southern Spain from there.

I called the base at Rota and was able to change our reservation for a room from the 15th to the 10th. If all works out we will see what we want to see and still get back home a little earlier than we thought.

I shudder to think what predicament we would have found ourselves in if I had not told Antonio our expected departure date. He may have shown up on Friday at 1100 to check us out of the apartment and we may have been off for the weekend to wherever thinking we had five more days.

Anyway a broken toilet seat brought me face to face with the landlord and our misunderstanding has turned into an opportunity to move on and see more of Spain. Life is great if you let it be!

Here it is all fixed, a new seat with the label still on it. That sure takes the "bite' out of things...