house hunting

If middle class Brazilian marriages last longer than others, it might be because nobody ever has to share a bathroom.

Like parking spaces, toilets outnumber people in many São Paulo apartments. I doubt it's because of any regulations on toilet-use like with cars, but it's a curious illustration of decadence.

Mark and I have started having fun arguments in our search for a home:

"No, NO! Look, it only has seven bathrooms, what if we have six people over and everyone needs to take a dump at the same time? What are we supposed to do, share?"

Another phenomenon new to me: uncredited toilets. In New York real estate listings, every square millimeter is shouted about. Large closets become 'flex bedrooms' and a wide windowsill is described as a 'flex balcony.'

But here you'll see bizarre shit like a listing that reads 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and 1 guest pizzad, But a look at the floor plan shows five bedrooms, four bathrooms, one guest pizzad. Who the hell undersells an apartment on bathrooms?

I discovered that the unmentionable bath and bedrooms are part of the 'Service Area,' sometimes called 'maid's quarters.' These are the accommodations built for your servants of course, and naturally they don't count as real bathrooms and bedrooms, because you wouldn't want to use them. They are small, without amenities like pretty tiling and decorative fixtures, and universally miserable-looking.

Before we made the leap here I read a lot of gringo expat blogs, several of which celebrated the fact that in Brazilian culture, 'Hurrah! Everyone has a maid!'

Oh really, assholes? Does your maid have a maid? Does her maid have a maid? Does your driver have a driver? Who does your gardener's garden?

Check this out, from an otherwise amusing gringa blog: "...visiting in-laws, end of year festivities, carnival, sick children and school holidays.  The last in the line of things to stand between me and my ‘me time’ was my maid.  She was hospitalized for a week and almost died.  If it was painful for her, it was for me too, stuck at home doing chores instead of indulging my yoga, ballet and lunch habits.  Thank God she came back."

Did you just throw up in your mouth? OMG me too! Elsewhere in the same post, Gringamel (I just made this up! It's like Gargamel from The Smurfs, but for mean gringas! Shut up.) complains about how it's hard to get used to having another adult in your home who knows your business. Then she complains about how she doesn't like hearing TMI about her maid's personal life, personal information which she then reveals on her blog.

If i had a job right now I would feel quite superior to to this Gringamel...