A funny thing happened with my curtains...

When we moved into this house, it was as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard. Our agent promised us she would get us some sheer curtains for the windows facing the road but as days passed and she never got us anything, I got fed up with her. Her name is Adeline, she works for Colliers and I have not been happy working with her. Entirely up to you, dear reader, to judge if you decide to use Colliers and end up with her.

Back to my curtains. I got Supardi, our trusty compound superintendent, to get a curtain guy in. Then I had to learn new terms. Curtains are called gorden here. Sheers are called vitreous (spelling?). Now I discovered why Supardi had looked puzzled when I used the Malaysian word for it, which is langsir.

So curtain guy, Suratman, came in and did all the measurements. Since we had old curtains from our house in KL, we decided to re-use them for this house. No sense buying new curtains when we're sure to move again and god knows what kind of house we'll end up in when we do. I gave three different sets of curtains to Suratman and told him which curtains were for which rooms.

Suratman and his helper came back last Friday to put everything up. Now unknown to me, one set of curtains I gave him contained a panel that was far too short for our tall windows. It was only long enough to cover about half the window's height.

Now, if I were Suratman and I found out about this shorter panel, I would have asked madam of the house if she had another set of curtains. But did he? Nooooo.... He put up the two longer panels at the double windows and then for the single window, he put up the window rails at - yes, you guessed it - halfway up the windows and hung my shorter panel curtain up anyway. So my window looked like one from a brothel or something... kinda embarrassed to show the inside type of window? Gawd.

When I went in to check their work, I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. I asked him, "Why did you put it up anyway?" His answer was a defensive "But YOU gave me the short panel and it's not long enough!" I decided there and then that it would be futile to argue with him and told him to remove the rails and curtains and let it be.

I am now getting just a simple wooden blind for that window. Less headache, I think. Can't go wrong with the blinds, can I?