Some of you may have met Butterscotch before we left the States. Butterscotch Pony is a voice-activated plush horse which also moves her head and ears, and blinks her eyes. Butterscotch even whinnies and neighs like a real pony. Plus, little ones can sit on Butterscotch and pretend to go for a ride.Guess who got Butterscotch Pony for Christmas?
Kaia was thrilled to receive her "real" pony. The unfortunate part was that she didn't get to spend a lot of time with Butterscotch (or any of her Christmas gifts) because we had to have the house packed up to go to Australia by January 3rd. We had to explain to Kaia that Northern Trust wasn't going to pay for a business-class plane ticket for Butterscotch so the horse had to go on a "special" trip on a boat with all the rest of our things.
Anyway, today we received word that all of household goods have passed Australia customs with the exception of one thing: a small ladder. This is your typical $30 four-step wooden ladder that I bought for my first apartment in Chicago so I could change light bulbs and reach the tops of cabinets. The ladder has been sitting in our garage in Naperville and may have had some dirt on the feet when it got packed. So AU Customs stuck it in quarantine and the ladder failed whatever quarantine tests it was subjected to.
Poor ladder.
Since AU Customs won't store things for unglamourous ex-pats like us, we were presented with two options:
1. Have the ladder "disposed" of.
2. Have the ladder steam-cleaned.
To throw the ladder away is $93.00. To have it steam-cleaned to Aussie standards is $150.00.
Needless to say, our $30 ladder will become a sparkling clean $180.00 beauty.
I need to change the light bulbs here to.
3 comments:
Ahahahah! That's great! According to your other blog, you probably would've paid $787.56 for a brand new step ladder. You can find it in the same aisle with the $28.00 keys.
The kid in the picture really does look like Kaia!!
I bet Kaia can't wait to see Butterscotch, what a cool toy! You are probably thrilled that your stuff will be there soon. How cool, a cocktail party for the school - much better than a PTO meeting. It was actually in the 50's today so you know how that is in Chicago, no one wears coats, some people in shorts, you would think it was summer here! I will talk to you soon. Love to hear the updates. Sharon
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