Small victories

*

As I mentioned a while back, one of the challenges of living in a new country is that you often have to find out what things are called, and where they are sold, before you can acquire them. This sometimes complicates even the simplest tasks. For example: our front door has been creaking the last few months. A lot. Really loudly. To the point where my sister was making Vincent Price jokes. Every day of her visit.

“You really need to get some WD-40 for that,” she advised just before she left.

“I will, I will,” I said, “as soon as I find out what they call it down here.”

Then the other day, I opened the door so that a visiting Australian friend could depart, and it creaked so loudly that she jumped involuntarily.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’ve got to do something about that, as soon as I figure out what the Australian equivalent of WD-40 is, and get myself out to Bunnings (a big box store, equivalent to Home Depot/B&Q, not accessible without a car) to get some.”

She looked at me with bemusement. “It’s WD-40 down here too,” she replied. “And I bet you they sell it at Big W.”

(Equivalent to Target. A five-minute walk from my house. Would not require a special rental-car trip!)

Today, after an extended hunt through every possible department (Hardware? House cleaning? Manchester?), I found WD-40 in the “Motoring” department.

And my front door doesn’t squeak anymore.

Life is good.


* NB I didn’t think a shot of a can of WD-40 would be too enthralling, so here, have a picture of a vintage Holden (another thing you could use WD-40 on!) instead.