How Many Polaks Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?

Real answers to real life questions, here. That's what we're about. Knowing the answer to that question may one day be of some moment to you, as it was for me. And while I'm proud to possibly be the first person to blog about this, I still wish someone had done it before me and I had read it and been saved a small amount of stress.

Greg recently calculated that we can save as much as $6 in gas on the drive to church simply by leaving on time so we don't have to speed. You're right if you're thinking that maybe our chapel isn't 3 blocks away or even across town. We have a two hour drive (to Cracow). And gas isn't four dollars a gallon, either. It's almost twice that.

Greg's church calling requires him to visit three branches, and we take turns visiting each of them. The previously mentioned Cracow branch is our "home" branch, as it's the nearest. This Saturday, however, we headed out to Wroclaw (the farthest), a city about a five hour drive from where we live (not including stops). Greg had an afternoon meeting there so we were doing our usual stay over in a hotel in order to attend that branch on Sunday. We knew there was big money to be saved by leaving extra early on this one. First we had to go to Greg's work so he could print out some documents for his meeting. His computer kept freezing and that took longer than expected. Then, on our way out of town he stopped at our local Opel dealer and explained that one of our headlights was recently replaced and it was at the wrong angle, so it needed to be adjusted (sidenote: in Poland-possibly the entire EU- you have to have your headlights on day and night year long--except for when you're not driving it, then they can be off, I believe).

Greg parked in the parking lot and assumed that they would just have someone run out and make the adjustment. No, we had to drive into the shop. Two men started working on the headlight. After about five minutes I was a little perplexed as to why we were still there. Then they called in the third guy. Another 10 minutes of work. Finally they call in guy number four. They're adjusting, turning the tires, turning the lights off and on etc. while Greg stands around with them providing the comic relief and I'm sitting with the kids in the car trying to make them forget that we're sitting in the car, just like we will be for the next 5-6 hours.

So the answer to the question posed in the title of this post would be 5. It takes five Polaks to change a lightbulb; four that work at the auto shop and one customer to cheer them along. It also takes those five Polaks 35 minutes to change that bulb. But, to be fair, and also in order not to completely deceive you, this had not a whit to do with their nationality. It had everything to do with the car:

www.autodoom.com/Opel_Zafira.php

This is what our car looks like, except ours is beige-ish. Panna cotta, to be exact (sounds significantly nicer than beige-ish, but doesn't give you any idea of the actual color unless you're a total foodie [or a regular foodie. Or an Italian speaker. I wouldn't know; I am none of the above.] and know what panna cotta is. Still, I imagine real panna cotta doesn't have all the pretty sparkles in it like our panna cotta Opel does.). Doesn't this car just have the cutest nose? Well, this picture doesn't really do it justice. I love the front of this car. Unfortunately the designers of this car made the same mistake designers of highly fashionable clothing often make. They threw practicality to the wind, as no single human being, especially one who doesn't work for Opel, would ever be able to change a headlight on their own in under an hour.

And I'm like, "What's up with that?"

And then we finally get on our way and realize that the extra hour we gave ourselves is gone and Greg is about a half an hour late for his meeting. Maybe that math doesn't add up (I'm only good at Geometry and there were no angles in this problem), but that's how the story goes.