5% for this and that, "for our convenience"

Pigly Wigly, the local grocery store, was starting to feel like quite the rip off.  I knew their prices were expensive but some days it was shocking and irritating.  Most of their stuff had no prices on it so I never quite knew what anything was going to cost.  Each time I put my items on the check out counter it was with a bit of dread over what the total was going to be.  It’s all in my vivid imagination, I’m sure, but I began to suspect that the unfriendly black lady at the check out counter decided the price depending on the customer.  No matter how many times I went there she never said a friendly word, like “hello” or “welcome” or even a little “thank you” for spending a wad with them, but just kept ringing up those items with those crazy prices.  Each time I got the shocking total it seemed I never have enough cash to cover it, so I’d have to get out the old credit card.  That’s what bugged me the most because then she’d add another 5% without a blink and say the 5% charge is for “your convenience” (meaning allowing me to use my credit card with them).   Who’s convenience? I thought.  More like for their convenience.  And I'm sure the credit card is charging another few % on top of our final bill too for "their convenience to convert to American dollars".

"Slim Pickens"

By the end of the week, the vegetables and produce in Pigly was what you would call "slim pickens", as most of it was a week old, limp and some of it on the verge of rotten.  I was struggling to find a fresh looking vegetable for a side dish to the dinner.    “No problem!”  Eva says.  "You have some cabbage in the frig!"  So she would make some Bahamian coleslaw that was so full of mayonnaise that we couldn’t eat it for fear our arteries would clog up. 

Easier, cheaper and more fun to go out

As you can begin to see, we just got tired of the whole darn thing.  We figured it was easier, cheaper, more flexible, more slimming and more fun to not have a cook and just go out when we wanted to experience the town and if we were tired and wanted to stay home, I could just make something simple and light.   So, I told her "Thanks but we’ll call you if we need you!"  She kept calling for a few days driving us nuts, but finally Larry nice but firm, “We will call you before 10:00 AM if we need you for that day, otherwise don’t worry about it and don’t come!”  I made sure she knew we liked her food and it wasn’t her cooking, which was true.  We really didn't want to hurt her feelings, but geez Louise, it’s our darn vacation.  So that was that and Hallelujah brother we were free again! 

Well, sort of free...

And. so much for having maid service everyday…

Well, the next thing that was really gnawing on our nerves was the daily maid service that came with the house.  No, it wasn't like the quick in and out service at a hotel.  Betsy, the somewhat elderly black maid, would arrive at 10:00 AM or round that time and be there for at least 2-3 hours.  We had to get out of the house as her daily "modus operandi" was mopping the floors or as Larry would say "smearing the floors with the same old dirty mop" and remaking the bed that I already made.  We couldn’t really see anything else that she was doing and certainly nothing that warranted our having to be out for 2 ½ hours or more each day.  We were keeping the place clean, making the bed, cleaning up our breakfast dishes, and in fact, I had to give the bathroom and kitchen a thorough cleaning when I arrived just to feel comfortable and it made a definite improvement.  But, every morning, she’d arrive and we’d have to leave as she’d say “You can go now.”  

So we’d drive around in the golf cart mostly.  One an island as small as a peanut there wasn't much to do or see, so we'd see the same things over and over.  It was like going round and round on a merry go round.  We were getting really bored with this place and the locals weren't that friendly.  We didn’t want to go to the beach each time as Ziggy would get full of sand and some days the wind was blowing or it was beastly hot, or dead calm and that's when the bugs came out biting.  Most days we just wanted to stay home and relax.  Not in this joint.  Larry was getting sick of it. 

We found ourselves drawn back to the marinas...we asked ourselves, what are we doing?

So, on our daily merry go round ride, we’d find ourselves checking out the couple marinas to see who had come in and who left.  And if per chance we'd see a boat coming in Devil's Backbone we rush down to the docks to watch them come in and dock.  We'd also just walk the docks looking at the boats and striking up conversations with the boaters.  They were the friendliest people on the island.  Soon we asked ourselves, "What were we doing?"  We don’t have a boat anymore.  We’re supposed to be enjoying the idea of not having the boat.  We're supposed to be enjoying renting a house "in paradise".  We didn’t admit it at first but we were missing our boat big time and the lifestyle that goes along with it.  People were so much friendlier at the marinas and we realized that these people were doing things that interested us. 

Gave Betsy the boot too

Anyway, enough of this, as it wasn't too long before we gave Betsy the boot too, so to speak.  Larry told her to only come 3 days a week and I think she was very grateful as she thanked us profusely.  Even three days a week was way too much for us but we could deal with that better than 6 days a week for Gods sake! 

The gardener….

Well, he’s another story.  He’d show up just before dawn, in the dark, and scare the bageebees out of me.  I’d wake up to see this elderly black man walking by our bedroom window inches away.  He wasn’t looking in the window mind you but just walking quietly by checking God only knows what each morning.  Sometimes he’d hammer something outside and if I wasn’t already awake, I would be then.  A few times I think he was turning on the sprinklers which on occasions would forget to turn them off in a timely manner and thus drain the water tank dry and then we couldn’t flush the toilets or take a shower for a few hours.  We could never figure out what he was doing for all the times he came by as not a weed was picked or a blade of grass trimmed the whole stay.

The final day though he decided to finally do some yard work.  But it wasn't him that would do the hard labor.  No, he brought a young kid who worked the entire day in the yard.  The kid had the whole place torn up and made quite a mess with piles of weeds and trimmings.  He dug up the dirt in all the planters and weeded, and did a bunch of stuff that you'd think the gardener could have done over time bit by bit instead of letting the place look ragged during our stay of three weeks.  I mean, the grass was growing almost knee high.  So the whole day, on our last day, we couldn't enjoy the yard nor let Ziggy out.  To do all this on our last day made us feel like they didn't care how it looked while we were here but were only interested in getting it ready for the next renters.  Oh well, we were stuck with him as he would come and go everyday like The Shadow.   If you wanted to ask him a question he suddenly disappeared, vanishing into thin air.

Sounding like a total grouch?

Gee, how do I write about all this without sounding like a total grouch?  But we learned something from all of this.  We began to realize that we missed the boating life.  We preferred it.

Okay, so now you know about the help.  I guess we’re not cut out for this kind of vacation.  We don't enjoy having people hanging around.  We felt like we had no privacy as there was always someone here.   So we fixed the situation pretty quickly.  It seemed so pretentious to have all these "servants" around doing pretty much nothing when instead some of the money paid to keep them would've been better spent on fixing the run down condition of the house.  Yep, the house needed some work and I'm sure you'll hear about it below.   

So much for peace and quiet, even after the help was dismissed...

So, now that we had more free time without the watchful eyes of the help, we were going to relax and enjoy the peace and quiet.  We were going to start the real vacation with out the worries of what we thought having a boat was or so we thought.  That’s when the noise became apparent.

The wind changed direction a few days after we arrived and that's when the roar of the generator plant became unbearable.  It was located a short walk (a block I'd say) from the house.  I didn’t know quite what the sound was at first but it was loud and at times deafening depending on which way the wind was blowing.  It would run for hours most days.  I rationalized its existence at first, telling myself that the island needs power, so that’s what you have to put up with on a remote island like this. 

Then, the construction project began full tilt on house right behind us.  Just our luck and bad timing I guess. The noise was so close and loud that it sounded like they were working on our house.  There was the sound of power saws, hammering, non-stop yelling and loud talking, and one day the cement mixer and pump was making so much noise the entire day that the whole house vibrated and it was absolutely deafening.  We literally had to get out of the house, actually the whole neighborhood, as one whole day it was so bad it our nerves were frayed.  They even worked on Sunday so there was no break with these guys.  I wouldn't even put up with this at home let alone on vacation but we just did our best to get used to it. 

Over population of golf carts

Oh, and then there were the golf carts.  Oh my gosh, the golf carts on this island are something else.  Since we were here two years ago we think the number on the island has got to have doubled or even tripled and now they have cars, regular cars, too.  These roads are so small anyway; just the size of little colonial roads so there's barely any room to handle all the traffic.  It was impossible to have a relaxing walk without fear of being run down.  It was like taking your life into your hands.  And good luck finding parking spots, sometimes you either double park or ducked into any unlikely space you could find.  We were just amazed at the number of them and to think we were here "off season" so they weren’t all out on the roads yet! 

We’d drive past rental lot after rental lot just filled with golf carts ready to go.  Some were painted like spider man, some had splashy air brushed flames coming out the side, and one even had leopard skin designs painted on it.  Considering the snobbery of the island I don’t know why we didn’t see a Louis Vuitton or Gucci pattern.  They were all lined up ready to go.  Many were overly noisy too, in fact one local had installed a custom muffler that was so loud you could hear its deafening roar before he even came down our street, well in fact, you could tell every where he went on the island.  It was like saying “here I am, everybody look at me.  Here I go, now everybody look at me go.” 

You have to understand this island is so small, maybe 2 miles in length, if that, and ¼ mile wide and I’m guessing.  So, there’s no place to go and hardly any roads or space for all these carts and cars.  It was a constant topic of conversation with us as we wondered what in the world it would be like to see all the carts on the island rented and running at one time. How could the island possibly handle it?  I would love to see that.  The noise already was nerve wracking and the golf carts constantly zooming by the house just added to the cacophony.  But hey, we had one too and we were part of the circling numb nuts driving around the island because let’s face it there was nothing else to do.  Which brings us to the next topic…

Bored stiff and silly….

How many times can you walk around this little town and look at the nice architecture?  How many times can you walk down to the beach and get bitten by sand fleas?  How many times can you walk out on the harbor at low tide and get bitten again?  How many times can you eat peas and rice, cracked conch and grouper fingers?  How many price gouging places can you go to?

We were going crazy.  We didn’t bring any books because who would think we would need them nor did we think we could carry any more "stuff" with the hassle of Ziggy.  That's another thing about boating; you don't have to deal with lugging baggage everywhere you go.  There was no TV or even a VCR player in the house, but who would’ve thought we’d need it?  We started rummaging through the house looking for some cards or games to keep us busy and help pass the time.  If we had the boat we could be at least getting the news, or listening to the boaters net on the radio, or talking to other boaters, or taking the dinghy out exploring some beach or island, or we could be feeding the fish over the side with scraps from dinner, just a multitude of things that make us happy.

So, we searched the house for games, books to read, anything.

SCRABBLE

One day we opened a cupboard and found the games.  But good grief, everything was stuffed in such a hap hazard way that it was like those old comedies or cartoons you see where you open the door and everything falls out on the floor.  The over powering whiff of mildew and mold practically knocked you out.  But we were desperate so we managed to find a minimally mildewed moldy game of Scrabble and that saved us for the duration of the stay.

Larry a man of few words and most of them usually misspelled became a force to be reckoned with during our daily games of Scrabble.  Now I’m convinced that boredom was the answer to his improved command of the English language and not necessarily some hidden innate talent that decided to surface. 

House was much in the need of repair and loving care....
 

The house was driving us nuts with all the things that needed to be fixed and cared for.  You just wanted to fix the things you saw or clean it but heck why in the world would we spend our time fixing these things while paying to stay here?  This house was like one big boat that needed lots of work.  At least on the boat, you would be fixing something you owned and would feel satisfaction when done.  I think the owner should put some of the money that she’s paying for all the help instead into repairing and replacing all the worn and broken things.

Screen doors that screened nothing out

It started first with the screen doors.  They had them but they didn’t close and to install them they just broke the ceramic floor tiles out and never put the mortar back.  Each time you wanted some air without the bugs getting in you’d have to get into a wrestling match with the screen doors.  They never would completely close leaving a nice 2” gap for the bugs to come in.  We were getting eaten alive by the bugs and really would’ve liked to have the screen doors that worked.  After a while we just gave up and just holed up in the house with the doors shut and the AC on.  Not what I imagined it would be like when I came here.

The knob less kitchen

Then there was the kitchen.  Several knobs on the cabinets doors were missing when we arrived and several more came off during the stay.  It was all I could do to keep from heading to the hardware store and getting the proper screws to fix them. I began a collection of the knobs on the window sill in a nice neat row thinking the housekeeper would get the handy man to put them back on, that along with the broken parts from the refrigerator where shelves had broken off with previous renters and were just stacked behind the water cooler waiting for who knows who to repair.  No, the knobs just kept falling off and none put back on. 

Old expired food

When I started cooking after letting Eva go, I couldn’t help notice a stock pile of old food in the cupboards that had obviously been left over from other renters but never thrown out.  Things dating back way beyond expiration dates and canned goods so rusty that you wondered if they were going to blow up.  I felt like I had discovered stash from an old ship wreck.  Again, food left by other poor blokes that bought food for the cook that was just left here unused and wasted.  The frig had some old food in it that was ready to grow legs and soon walk out on its own.  I threw everything out that was a threat to public health and other stuff that was just old and stale.

Dish drying rack perched on some old lumber boards

I wrestled with their big ugly plastic dish drying rack that was on the counter for a couple days which was propped up at an angle for draining by several old rotten pieces of wood.  At first I actually thought the wood was permanently nailed to the counter but when I discovered it wasn’t I stowed the whole thing as fast as I could under the counter.  As far as I could tell It had never been cleaned underneath since the day it was put there and that goes for several other areas in the kitchen including the top of the refrigerator. 

Ziggy barked at the dishwasher

There was a dishwasher but I just assumed it didn’t work like everything else around here and why else would they have that God awful dish drying rack out if it didn't work?  I assumed it was like the washing machine which was marginally working.  The washer worked but the hinges on the lid were so rusty that it was barely hanging in there and bits of rust would get into the wash and leave rusty stains on the clothes.  The dryer was another monster that took literally a day to dry a load of towels. 

Oh what the heck I thought, "I’m going to try this dishwasher out".  I stowed some dishes in it and found some dishwasher soap, to my amazement under the counter, and turned the thing on.  Wow, it was louder than a tractor scraping the top layer of asphalt off the highway!  Ziggy even came in to see what the noise was and started barking at it!  It worked though and that was the mode of washing dishes from there on out as I knew it at least sterilized the dishes as they were hotter than heck when done. 

RULES AND REGULATIONS

That was another thing about this place that drove me nuts.  It was all the rules and notes regarding the rules found everywhere you looked.  The owner had binders of notes and rules for everyone.  That included not only us, the guests, but the maid, cook and gardener.  These instructions were endless.

ANNOYING RULES:

v     The first annoying and ridiculous rule was:
"You are allotted one roll of toilet paper for your stay and after that you were on your own".   (Another trip to Pigly Wigly)
 

v     Second annoying and ridiculous rule was:
"You are allotted one set of clean towels for the week", (though there were tons of them on the open linen shelf off the bedroom but sadly smelled to high heaven with mildew so I just washed them and used what I needed.)

v     Third annoying and ridiculous rule:
"Your sheets will only be changed once a week".

v     Fourth annoying and ridiculous rule:
"You are allotted one bar of soap during your stay, after that you (again) are on your own". (Another trip to Pigly Wigly)

v     Fifth annoying and ridiculous rule: "Guests were welcome to use the washer dryer but don’t use their detergent".  Well, this I can understand so another trip to Pigly Wigly, but did we have to be told so rudely?

v     Sixth annoying and ridiculous rule:
"You will have to buy our own water to drink and cook with when the house bottle of water runs out".  (I think the big bottle cost $5 and we used one for the three week stay.  Seems a little cheap that they couldn’t provide drinking water for their guests.) 

Oh heck, it went on and on.  It just bugged me as I felt I was at some summer camp or dorm.

The maid, gardener and cook had instructions and rules to.  Nobody escaped the Gestapo. 

I read in the "book of rules" that the maid was to work a total of 6 hours per day 5 days a week!  Good God, can you imagine?  Well, Betsy was only working for us 2 ½ hours a day in the beginning and I’d surely have gone completely mad if she was around for 6 hours everyday.   What in the heck would she do?  Maybe she could change the sheets and towels more frequently than once a week I joked to Larry. 

I read further that this poor woman was even supposed to be available to unload your groceries and put them away.  The "book" suggested that you order up your groceries by phone from Pigly Wigly and have them delivered to the house.  Now mind you Pigly Wigly is only a few houses away.  I can't imagine anyone that couldn't get their own groceries when it was that close.  I’m really missing something here I thought.  I’m doing way too much work in my life.  No really, I couldn’t imagine calling up my order and having it delivered when I could just as easily walk a few steps and get it myself and surely I could put it in the cupboards and refrigerator myself. 

The "service bell"?

The real clincher was the mention of the "service bell" which we never found.  It was to be “used to ring for service”.  You could ring the bell at dinner, I guess, to have your plates cleared instead of just turning your head to tell Eva (a few feet away), “We’re done”.  Is this nuts I thought or what?  I can understand this in the Hampton's maybe, in a fancy house, but couldn’t figure it out here, in this place.   What in the world would I need to ring a dang bell for instead of merely asking Betsy or Eva for something!  This was not my style of living!  What’s wrong with me I wondered?  During my stay I kept trying to figure it out why I thought this all was so ridiculous.  Was it me or them?

Anyway, the list went on and on, plus there were little lists framed under glass and hung on walls throughout posting more little rules everywhere.  There were silly labels too, like in the flatware drawer, each slot was labeled, like “knives”, “spoons”, “forks” and so on as if a normal person couldn’t figure out the obvious. 

THEY "EXPECT" THE TIP

The final clincher was the rule telling us that the maid and cook “expect” to be tipped at the end of your stay.  She gave a suggestion for how much.  That word “expect” just sent me over the top.  It would have been better if she would have said something like "It is entirely up to you as to how you feel about the service you received during your stay, but if you thought it merited it, please feel free to leave a tip".  But no, we were "expected to" and told how much.

Is this what it must be like to rent a house? We wondered.  Or maybe it’s just beach houses? or maybe it’s just this island?  We were novices at this.  This island is a bit hoity toity in a ridiculous way we thought.  The prices are rich when it comes to most everything.  In fact many times we felt like we were being gouged to the max. 

REAL ESTATE BOOM

The economy is going through a rapid change.  They were experiencing a real estate boom on the island which explained all the construction noise we endured.  Everything was suddenly "For Sale" and at a king’s ransom.  We saw one little colonial house (not much more than a shack) on the harbor road that needed a lot of work.  We were shocked to see it listed for 2.2 million.  It would be a tear down any where else.  Others, even worse, little falling apart shanties were listed at 8 hundred thousand.  There was a building boom too.  A lot of the houses were being remodeled and condos are being developed.  Even the house we were was a reconfigured mega bedroom rental unit.  In two years since we were here it went from a small one level cottage to a two story multi room rental monstrosity right next to one of the quaintest colonial cottages on the waterfront.  It dwarfed the little historical cottage.  Our rental house was really not appropriate to the historical surroundings and scale of the neighborhood.  But hey, that’s progress everywhere, nothing new and unusual here that isn’t going on everywhere else in the world.  Just sad.    

Speaking of "hoity toity"…..

We never saw a place such an unfriendly village.  You’d drive around and wave a friendly nod and you had a 20% chance of getting an upraised hand as a weak indication of a wave back, slight smile or even a raised eyebrow to acknowledge your greeting.  Most of the time you were completely ignored.  The service in many places was unfriendly, slow, terribly bored and regardless of how bad the service was; it included their guaranteed 15% (some places 18%) tip.  Of course we found many exceptions to this but it certainly was a feeling we had.

Maybe it’s the fact that the majority of people that come to the island are just tourists, coming and going for a brief visit and many expect to get waited on and served while they here.  We saw some pretty disrespectful tourists and it's got to get tiring for the locals after awhile.  I can understand the scenario.

Don't get me wrong though....there are plenty of great things on this island too though and many people that were friendly….

DOG FRIENDLY

This is about the most dog friendly place we’ve ever been.  Ziggy was welcome literally everywhere.  He went with us to all the finest restaurants on the island with no problem and could run free on the beach with the other dogs.  In fact, all the Bahamian dogs were free to roam the streets at will and many ran in little friendly packs.  We'd see many just lounging about in their sun warmed front porches.   I would see three regulars each morning making their daily round past our house, one leaving his usual dump by our dock and golf cart and others peeing here and there and checking out any the new smells.  They seemed to be very street savvy especially in regards to the golf cart traffic.  Ziggy, on the other hand, had no knack for these street skills.  He did know how to watch for the unpredictable drivers and so we had to keep him on the leash constantly in town.  We didn’t need the leash to keep him from running away but just to protect him from the reckless golf cart drivers weaving in and out of traffic barely missing a pedestrian here and there. 

Ziggy also was not as laid back as these easy going Bahamian dogs when arrived on the island but he soon picked up on their liaise faire attitude and developed a surprising relaxed attitude with other dogs.  In fact he developed several friendships throughout the town, and seemed to have fond love interest with a cute little pot cake that we regularly saw at the beach.  He also had a guy pal on the beach too, and several others depending on what restaurant or resort we were visiting.  It was comical to watch and observe. 

COCKLE DOODLE DOO!

Not only did the dogs have a free and easy lifestyle but the cats did too.  Nothing though, compared to the hens and roosters as they certainly ruled the roost.  They were everywhere and you could hear them all day long with their “cockle doodle doos!”  They would strut their stuff, those roosters, and if they saw a good looking chick walk by, they would think nothing of mounting her in front of whomever and when done would let out a loud cocky “cockle doodle doo!”   Now I know where the saying “cocky devil” comes from. 

The hens were everywhere too with handfuls of little chicks following them around.  Every once in awhile you’d see a panicked little chick who lost his mother and he’d be screaming and “running like a chicken with his head cut off” and everyone would stop and see if they could help find the mother.  Its things like that I loved about the place and, you know, somehow the animals all seemed to live together peacefully.  It all worked much better than the humans.  They all got along and mixed happily together.  In fact, Ziggy and the other dogs had no interest whatsoever in the roosters or chickens.  It was like a silent code “don’t bug the chickens”.  We liked eating at a nearby deli for breakfast and one old rooster thought it was his deli.  He would be there everyday waiting for someone to give him a crumb.  Zig didn’t think a thing about him coming by our table to see what we’d dole out for him.  Strangely, Ziggy ignored them all over the island.   

Funny thing too, we all survived these animals and didn’t die of some mysterious disease.  You wonder where all the health restrictions in the states come from.  It seems to work out just fine here.  Everybody gets along, is happy and healthy.   It really added to the comical ambience of the place.