Don’t leave your boyfriend home alone
I am serious. Don’t ever leave your boyfriend alone at home. If you do, make sure he doesn’t have access to the internet and/or a credit card ready to use. Because when you come back you will find something like this:
Ugliest cup ever!!
As you must have heard by now (because I’ve said it a hundred times), from Monday to Thursday I live in Shanghai. I go back to Suzhou on Friday evening. This means C. has to spend four nights alone. And this, my friends, is dangerous, because he knows how to use Taobao. And when he is bored, he buys stuff. Every Friday evening I open our apartment door and I am scared to look around and discover what new things he bought without consulting with me first.
Everything started when he bought a washing machine (this is ok, we needed it). The online store owner sent him a coffee machine as a gift. “¡Great!”, I told him. “Now you can buy ground coffee and use this machine”. The next weekend, I couldn’t help laughing when I saw this:
“Seriously? Why did you buy a grinder? No one grinds their own coffee, everybody buys it ground already!”. Then he told me that ground coffee was more expensive than coffee beans. Right… now you have to grind coffee beans every time you want to drink a cup of coffee!
But this was not the worst part. Then I checked the cupboards and I saw the white cups from the first picture. Oh. My. God. Not even my grandma had such ugly and old-fashioned cups. And the little dishes? “Why did you buy this??”. We didn’t even need more cups, we had several already. He said he was buying something else from a store and suddenly felt we needed more cups and these were the only ones that store had. And what was he buying from that store that only had one model of cups? Well, something that we never use anyway… those little things to put your chopsticks on! What are we, a fancy restaurant? We have never had that before! So now we have that, and I’m stuck with the ugliest cups ever!
I should also tell the story of how we almost fought because of our bedroom lamps. You know the small lamps you put on each bedside table, right? They are supposed to be the same model. Well, we couldn’t agree on which ones to buy so I just told him “Buy whichever you want” and he ended up buying two different ones. Now we have two completely different bedside lamps! One is white and transparent and the other is turquoise blue!
He has the worst taste in furniture EVER but I have to love him anyway!
Taobao should have a safety measure in which the wife/girlfriend needs to approve all the purchases made by her partner! I am going to write a letter to Jack Ma and suggest it!
Haha, that’s really funny. Non-matching bedside lamps would drive me crazy but I’m very sorry to say, I quite like the mug and saucer :P
Oh, saucer, that was the word I was looking for. Thanks!
Ehm… I guess our tastes are different, haha. I like more modern designs, and better if they have bright colors! :D
Oh and thanks for scaring me, I am about to leave my husband alone here for about 4 months!!! :S
Can you make him give you his credit card? That’s what my ex-colleague’s wife did when she went back to Spain to give birth while her husband stayed in Suzhou working, hahaha.
Taobao is like a Chinese Ebay? I think your gf/wife approval system is an excellent suggestion!
Exactly, it is the Chinese Ebay and you can find basically anything there! And usually very cheap! It is a very dangerous website…
Boyfriends really need constant supervision huh!
It should really say that in the manual they come with… :)
A manual would be helpful, yes :P
This just had me in laughter! Your boyfriend has some very interesting taste in cups (that you don’t need). Oops!
Maybe I will suddenly become very clumsy and start breaking cups while I’m doing the dishes… oops!
What are you talking about?? That mug looks awesome!! (Us guys gotta stick together) :D
Actually I am the exact opposite with your boyfriend. I won’t bother with cups. I have a big metal mug which is my water mug/coffee mug/green tea mug/hot chocolate and oats mug. And.. grinding coffee? Sorry, too lazy for that, it’s 3-in-1 instant coffee for me :D
But then, I guess when I do have a girlfriend, she will be more mad at me than you your boyfriend. Because although I rarely shop, when I shop they are all expensive things: smartphone/kitchen electricals/camera, those stuff..
Oh, my boyfriend also loves buying expensive stuff, and then using it once and completely forgetting about it!
Boyfriends are like toddlers :P You have to watch them 24/7 because silence is bad and no silence is good silence! :P lol.
They need constant attention haha!
It’s part of the great trade off we call life.
My bf buys electronics online and i buy makeup, I think in this way there is no overlap and no one can be bothered by the other’s taste ^^. Good thing he doesn’t care about decor, just cooking stuff. So in the future, when we get our own place, he’ll be in charge of the kitchen supplies and I’ll be in charge of all the other rooms. How nice is that?
That’s a good arrangement! :)
Sing would say same about me :D
But I’m sure the things you buy are way cuter :P
no offense but I haven’t met a man, including my husband and father, who have good taste in household items :D
My wife would just love those cups! I think I stoped her several times buying similar ones…
But really, taobao and similar stores are really dangerous for some people. At the moment we have everyday packages delivered to our apartment because my wife is on a shopping spree.
Really? Which website does she use to buy things in Europe? Are things as cheap as in Taobao? :D
Don’t ask me, she just finds stuff all the time…the apartment is filling more and more!
Oh, Marta – all men are alike! I remember when my husband planned to buy a movie projector to complete his ‘man cave.’ I said that we don’t need it. Two days later, he said to me ‘Oh, do you got a minute, I need help installing the movie projector.’ However, I have to admit that I LOVE watching movies on the big screen at home and this happened 5 years ago and he hasn’t made any huge purchases like that since then (well, without us deciding together).
Well, as long as you use what you bought then it is ok! My boyfriend bought several videogame machines he never uses -_-
Hilarious. I’m on your side here. Don’t like the cups and the saucers, it isn’t something I would serve tea to my guests. I don’t know, can you actually make exchanges for these cups if it’s not too late? And those things you put the chopsticks on…this is the first time I’m hearing of anyone buying those things :D
Nah, returning it is too complicated… maybe they will just slip out of my hand by “accident” ;)
Haha, I’m a man, and i think the mug and saucer are OK to me, and that’s interesting that I also like to buy something what i think is very practical when i am on Taobao and other online shopping stores, and that always incurs the complaints from my Wife, AND generally that stuff was used only once when the stuff was bought, and then it never be used any more.
So it seems many men share these traits ;)
Ahahaha, I laughed so hard while reading this! XD My goodness, I wonder what you’ll be finding this week! (Maybe this will become a regular thing??)
Thankfully my husband doesn’t seem to buy too many things, but he does bring back random things from his parents’ house that we don’t need (we have two printers and two irons nowーWHY) and food that his work gives him. (Cup-a-soups are nice if you get a box or two, but he brings 5-10 boxes at a time!! So now when I meet up with friends I just give them a bunch, haha!)
My weakness is Amazon…or any bookstores in general. I’m probably the one who shouldn’t be left alone anywhere because I always seem to be buying a new book….or three. ^^;
Haha, I also like buying books but I try to restrain myself as they are very heavy when you need to move apartments… or even countries!
Yup – I usually give in and sell/give away a lot of them when I move, but… I still have a lot. ^^;
Ja, ja… Marta, deshacerte de esas tazas es muy sencillo, hazlo poco a poco, sin discutir. Fregando… crash, con el codo en la mesa… crash… Un compañero de piso mío dio con 24 vasos en pocos meses. Lo tuyo no se notará.
Qué malvada eres! :P
Y el café es mucho más aromático recién molido. Sabia elección… si tiene tiempo para ello.
My friend left home for a week and when she came back her husband had a car in the driveway (that the salesman totally ripped him off for!)
Let’s hope you don’t come home to a yacht or something, haha
OMG. That totally sounds like something my dad would have done haha.
I am glad there are still someone else that likes the mug:)
Just take it! Leave your address and I will send it to you before Marta kills it!!
OMG YES! This is so true!
I let Matcha-kun go to Ikea to get our sofa (which I picked) and asking him to pick up some bright pillows that would go well with the grey colour… I said yellow, red, blue, dark green, purple are all ok.
He comes home with orange and acid green pillows, and a throw blanket to match…. ^^;
He went alone?? That’s too dangerous! I went with my boyfriend and that was when I found out about his bad taste in furniture and decorations… if he had gone alone I would have surely ended up with the ugliest and most expensive leather sofa in the store (I hate leather sofas!!).
Yprh is right. Coffee smells (and tastes) better when it’s recently ground. I’ve thought of buying a grinder. But then I remember I don’t want to take the time to do it.
Yes, the problem definitely is the time it takes!
Online shopping is making it too easy for these guys to buy weird things. My boyfriend likes to spend his time looking at things on amazon for cheap merchandise. This week he ordered some books for school and a random dog whistle. I don’t understand why when he is not even going to use it.
We grind our own coffee beans too. He says it’s not right to drink instant coffee. Our standards of living are on different levels. I’m not the expensive one in this relationship. :(
A dog whistle? Those that only dogs can hear? Do you have a dog? :D
We have 3. 😵👌 Two mixed Pomeranians and a black Labrador. They can be a hand full. The whistle gets them to stop barking at least 👿
Oh then it makes sense that he bought it :D
Heck you don’t even need to have a credit card! When my partner goes to the market on Chapel Road near our home to pick up something simple like bread or veggies he comes back with an antique clock with dials for 5 time zones or some handyman gadget that I know he will never use! 1 simple item becomes 10… And they say women are dangerous shoppers!!
That’s true, we have the bad reputation but I think men are way worse! :D
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