Random Ramblings

The toilet in our apartment has two different buttons for flushing. We could not figure out why until we realized that the left button (which is a little bigger) is for a “big flush” and the right button (which is a little smaller) is for a “small flush”. Now the question is: how exactly does one determine whether their “deposit” requires a big flush or a little flush? I mean, there could be instances where one just cannot decide....

That brings me to public restrooms. First of all, when you need a restroom you must look for the sign that says “WC”, which stands for “water closet”. Sometimes they use the word “Toilets”, but I have found that “WC” is more common.

Public restrooms always have attendants. Department stores, malls, fast food restaurants, etc have a person who sits there all day and tends to the restrooms. They have a little bowl or plate on a little table that they sit behind and they collect anywhere between 20 and 50 Euro cents for each person that needs to go to the bathroom. Don't try to go past without paying or you will get an earful! There was no one at the desk so I just walked past – I'll never do that again!

We've been underwear shopping in the department stores lately. Jagger has decided that he only wants to wear regular big boy underwear, not the thicker cloth training pant underwear. I couldn't find ANY little boy's underwear in any of the department stores I was going in to. I couldn't figure out why until I finally asked a cashier (kassa). The underwear is all in the underwear section! Clothing is divided into departments: men's, young men's, womens, young womens, boys, girls, and infants. The underwear are all in one general underwear section. The men's boxers are on a rack beside the ladies white granny (hah! I was typing the word “granny” and the auto-complete on my word processing program thought I was writing granola! - that just suddenly struck me as funny!) undies. Boy's underwear is in the same section as the girl's underwear so that children can be even more embarrassed when they are underwear shopping with their mother and run into a classmate of the opposite sex. Unlike our trusty old Fruit of the Looms, European boy's underwear do not have the piss-hole (I asked Jeff and he said that was the technical term) that no one uses in the front. Instead, they look like girl's underwear but have a little seam on either side in the front to allow some extra space. And sizes? I have no clue. I'm familiar with European shoe size, but the clothes have me stumped. I ended up buying Jagger (age 3) size 140 underwear.

So now you may ask, if the underwear are all in one section, then where is the sock section? What about bras? The socks are with the shoes, of course! And bras seem to be only sold in lingerie shops. For some reason there are lots of those here. I'm not so sure a plus size woman would feel good walking into a lingerie store to get a size 48D bra when the window display has leather thong underwear and see-through bras.

Speaking of window displays, I saw a really funky one the other day. I know they say “pink is the new black” (I'll be really happy when that trend is over) and this window took that to heart (no future pun intended). The display mannequins were wearing clothing that was ALL pink and white – solids, stripes, dots, etc. It was a total pepto-bismol explosion. The floor of the display was red and scattered around on the floor were heart shaped pink squishy looking things and white marshmallows! Someone must have been hungry when they were making the display.

Speaking of marshmallows, Jagger and I were shopping the other day and he saw a neat little package of candy. They were little rectangles that were yellow and pink. They looked yummy so I bought a small pack. They tasted exactly like the marshmallows from Lucky Charms! Isn't that a child's dream? A box full of Charms without the Luckies!