This morning was oil delivery day. In typical Swiss fashion, they showed up at 6:40am for a delivery window of 7-8am. I am really going to struggle with the U.S. delivery windows when we return. We have never had a person come 5 minutes past the start of their delivery period here. The more typical experience is for them to be a few minutes early.
We burned 2800 liters of oil this winter. I was worried that we'd use an embarrassingly large volume of oil, but it looks like average consumption. Phew. I had to give the delivery man the house "record book" which has every delivery since the house was built in 1976. It doesn't look like the bill will break us either. By my calculations, we'll owe around 2,500 CHF. Never having bought oil before, I had no idea what to budget.
When the delivery man first told (showed) me that we used 2800 liters, I thought he was saying that I owed him 2800 CHF. Cash. Right then. (If you've never been to Switzerland, trust me when I say this scenario is not as far fetched as you might imagine.) Anyway, I was taking deep breaths and trying to explain in my very limited German that I didn't have cash. I am, we've learned to carry a lot of cash on us, but even pooling our resources, we wouldn't approach 2800 CHF. The delivery man finally realized what the crazy woman feared, and clearly said, "Liters. Liters." Yippee. I'll wait for the pink payment slip to arrive in the post.
The grandmother next door arranged for the delivery (as well as our septic clean out last week). I am so thankful for this woman! She even knew exactly where we could find the aforementioned record book. Oddly, her daughter, who has also lived in the house for 34 years, had no idea where our tank was located or how the pipe was connected. (The landlord showed us how to access the tank, and we figured out the connection on our own this morning.) I, on the other hand, can already tell you that the neighbor's tank is accessed from the garage and the connection is in the same location. I guess I'm just nosy that way.
2 comments:
Great job managing the oil delivery. Are you responsible for septic too? No sewer system in your area? Nice that you have the neighbor to help. I'm assuming this is not the adjoining neighbor.
Actually, it is the adjoining neighbor. It is cheaper if we schedule the delivery together. The grandmother (house owner) takes charge of it. She's adorable. Her grandson translates for us. The septic is done every 2-3 years. I'm actually not entirely sure it is septic. I think the translation of that was a bit difficult. Whatever it is, they have to clean the drains all around the house and in the garage.
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