Culture Happens

Here is Jim's other comment, "Culture is happening. CULTURE IS HAPPENING! (you must share THAT funny story.. how funny)".

Now to put it into context. When Jim and Peggy arrived, they spoke a great deal about wanting to experience the culture here as they do whenever they travel.

One night while they were here, there was a fire on our street. The street was filled with fire trucks and although Jim, Peggy, and our other guests were milling around the window watching the goings on, I was grading papers and never left my computer. However, I said to Jim "Culture is happening." and we chuckled.

The next morning at 7:30 am, the buzzer rings for the downstairs door. Everyone was still sleeping and we ignored it. People wanting to get in to leave flyers always choose our buzzer. This time, the buzzer was insistent to the point that I answered it and let whomever into the building and went back to bed. 

Not five minutes later, our own door bell was ringing. I threw on my bathrobe and went to answer it. There was a man in a uniform, the likes of which I had never seen before. He bla, bla, bla'ed to me in Hungarian, but when I said I did not understand, he said "We need to check your chimney. There was a fire here last night. The 'chimney' is for the hot water heater and is inspected annually. The last time was only a month ago, but I let him in. He came in followed by three other men all in the same uniform. Being wider awake, I saw the logo was a fireman running with a ladder. 

The four men went into the bathroom, where we pointed out the heater and chimney. They did massive investigations and were chattering like a bunch of old women at a gossip convention. I was concerned they were going to wake the guests in both rooms, but especially the large bedroom. Without our knowing it, they went into the bedroom, saw people in there and zipped out again. Then they sheepishly opened the door and said they needed to check the thermostat as well, which is in the large bedroom. There was enough noise to raise the dead and we still had a few days before Halloween. After they declared us fully in compliance a clean chmney and with no fire hazards , they thanked us and left. 

Thirty minutes later, Jim emerged from the small bedroom. I apologized for all of the noise, but he had not heard a thing. I said I should have been shouting "Culture is happening, culture is happening". So culture happened and he missed it.

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