A man is walking down a country road. He sees a farmer up on a ladder in an apple tree holding a pig so it can eat the apples from the tree. When the pig can no longer reach the apples, the farmer climbs down, moves the ladder to a new spot on the tree and climbs up again with the pig who munches cheerfully on the apples hanging from the branches. The observer, quite puzzled, says to the farmer, "Wouldn't it save a lot of time and effort if you just let the apples fall of the tree and let the pig eat them on the ground?"
"Oh, don't worry", says the farmer, "What's time to a pig?"
I so often think of this story as I continue to run into a culture where everything takes so much longer and is so much more complicated than it need be. We bought our tickets to Siberia. Moscow Abakan return $500. We can book them on line but have to go to a bank to pay for them. Can't pay on-line by credit card. We print off the page to take to the bank. I give the teller my credit card. Though I have a copy, she needs my original passport (at the Russian Embassy) and the notarized translation. So I can pay by credit card at a bank? A credit card with a chip and a PIN? I go outside to the bank machine, jam in my credit card and take out enough cash to pay for the tickets.
I have to learn to be like that pig. If "the farmer wants to carry me up the tree to reach the apples" what's time to a pig? Or a jackass, for that matter?
We leave by train to Moscow on April 27 and return May 19. We were going earlier but I knew Tanya would worry about her garden not being in. She will plant her garden and Lena will just have the tomatoes to transplant, about May 10. And my brother-in-law, Valerie, starts a month's holidays on April 21 so I will get a good visit with him this time. And it will be warmer in Siberia in May. Tanya can help Luda plant her garden.
Another truly swine post, BF.
ReplyDeleteUnnecessary bureaucracy! The bane of everybodies' existence.
Hope you can get through all the hoops in the process in time to get away and enjoy your trip.
ReplyDeleteLove the pig story, so true! I find lots of things more complicated now. To turn on the tv i used to just hit "on" or "power" now i have to go "tv, power, cable, power"
ReplyDelete4 steps instead of 1
and heaven help me if i mess up and go "power, tv" because it's a big mess to untangle.
As well, just look at the tamper-proof packaging we have now a bag in a pkg. in a pkg, in a box usually requiring the use of scissors or knife.
And my new electric range which the burners come on high and if i want less heat than that it has to be bumped down from 10 to 9.5 to 9 to 8.5 to 8 and so on all the way down to 1 or low.
Hope you have a great trip and happy gardening to Tanya!
Just to get my driver's license in Floruba, I have to prove my birth certificate is truly MY birth certificate. I then have to prove I was married, then divorced, then remarried, and that I truly have bills coming to my new address.
ReplyDeleteNext to me will be a Cuban with nothing in his pockets to prove he really is who he says he is. He will walk out with a license, light up his weed, and pull out in front of a police car, unmolested.
Me? I'll probably get thrown out of the license bureau sans license and have to walk home.
Farmers start catering to pigs/jackasses and the rest of us suffer as a result of their stupidity. That's an analogy I can related to. Hope you have a safe and enjoyable trip.
ReplyDeleteer, "relate" I rilly shud profread ...
ReplyDeleteDana- Maybe we should all just sneak into Canada eh? We look so much like them they'll never know the difference. I hear they're even nicer to their illegals and their prisons are nicer.
ReplyDeleteTime flies; pigs don't.
ReplyDeleteDana, nice to see that free enterprise America is as bureaucratic as post scientific-socialism.
ReplyDeleteCD who did you say you were related to?
One of my favorite expressions is that we all end up at the same red light anyway....that is after 3 cars pass me in traffic weaving in and out...people are in such a hurry to save themself 1 minute...it is the silly rules that is aggravating to me..we have a dept of motor vehicle 12 miles from us...but we have to take the trailer to one 65 miles from us to get a new vin number...frustrating..
ReplyDeleteafcg, as the rabbit said to the giraffe, can't we just do it all in one place?
ReplyDelete