Thrones and other oddities

Every country has different terms for things. In the UK, a rubber is an eraser, for example. That got me into a lot of trouble when I first came here, way back in the Jurassic period. I heard a salesgirl say that someone had pinched her rubber-and I turned and said, poor thing, you can get some at the pharmacy. This, of course, led to hilarity among some other members of staff (and customers, too). For anyone who is reading this and hasn't been to the USA< a rubber is a condom.

In the US, the trunk of the car is the trunk; in the UK, it is known as the boot. The hood of the car is the bonnet in the UK-for reasons best known to the Brits. There are lots of terms which are something else. And my personal favorite is the term in the UK for waking someone up in the morning: here it is known as "knocking one up". I know this because I was with a group of Brits in Greece several years ago, and we made arrangements to meet early for breakfast. One of the group turned to me and said "I'll knock you up at eight". I nearly hit him - then I discovered what he meant, and it became a standing joke.

Our term in the US for the toilet is the bathroom, or the john (why the john? I've got no idea, and nobody I know seems to know, either. Or care). Here in the UK, the toilet is known as the loo (don't ask. I have no idea why, either).

I do have a reason (however obscure) for mentioning these things. When I was growing up, the term for the toilet was "the throne". Where is so-and-so? On the throne. Usually, that meant that someone in the family was sitting and reading a magazine; sometimes it felt like someone was reading War and Peace. Luckily, we had more than one "throne". To this day, I hear about the queen or someone ascending to the throne, and I can't help but have a good laugh. Besides, I've been here enough years to find that it is appropriate!!

In my bathroom, the loo is sitting on top of a concrete plinth that is somewhere between 6-8 inches high (to this day, I still work in inches, not centimeters). Why? Nobody seems to know; I think the person who lived in the flat before me must have been eight feet tall, because when I sit down, my feet don't touch the floor. So it really is a throne!! And it only took a year for me to push the landlord hard enough to send someone to remove the plinth. Someone will examine it on Friday. It'll probably take another year for anything to be done. By British standards, that is very quick work. Meanwhile, I have to stand on my toes before I can sit down. A throne, indeed!!

I've had a tough time with the noisy neighbor from Hell upstairs. I'm sure he's lost his marbles: he hammers on the floor in the middle of the night - no idea why. Perhaps he can't sleep, so doesn't want anyone else to sleep, either. I confronted him, and he pretended not to speak English. I'm contemplating violence.