Gimmie your "best" first world problems (Page 2)

We're blessed.

ETA:  Being an expat is a good gig.   Companies throw lots of money at you to keep you happy, because they're throwing lots of money around you just to get you here.   Last year, not counting my salary, my company spent over a quarter-million dollars to keep me in Beijing.   There's another family here with 11 kids.  I'd hate to know what that's costing the company!

Yeah but he lives... here.

Yup, and referencing my edit to the above post... I realized I was spending $1000 a year to change the air filters in my apartment.   I went to my company and said: "I don't have to deal with this in Indiana.  You should be paying for this."   And they did.

We knew the pollution would be bad... but we had NO IDEA how bad it really was... or would be.  We would not have taken the assignment if we'd known.  The week in the picture above... we did not send the kids to school at all because it was so bad.  There's ways to deal with it, masks and such,  but mostly we just stay inside until it clears up.

In the winter, when everyone is burning effing COAL to heat their homes (which is illegal.. but like most illegal things here, completely available, never prosecuted, etc.) it is worse.  There's about one day a week where it's so bad (over 400 on the index) where we really try to stay inside.  There are many other days where it's between 250 and 400 and we wear masks and don't dilly-dally outside.  I don't think it's been over 250 since about April.  It's just starting to get cool at night... so the heat will probably be on in a little over a month.  Many people have "government heat" which is piped underground as steam.  The government will be announcing soon when the "government heat" will be turned on. That means that all of these central heating facilities will start pumping out their emissions soon too. (probably Nov 1.)

I'm only JUST getting back to working out after a 2-year battle with motivation.   We negotiated a gym membership as part of our rent (so my company pays that too!) so I have access to a gym that has very good air filtration.  I work out there.  It is very difficult to ride a bike for more than 1km without stopping for traffic.  So, I commute via bike but do not ride a bike in any sort of serious way for training.

The gym has a pool but I'm currently only doing strength training and running... and only just began running again.

Me either, but here I am!  Short-term sacrifice for long-term gain.

Back to the thread:  There is no Taco Bell in China.

edited to fix quoting.

Right?

So spoiled.  Some might even say rotten;)

To the bold: understood. 

Taco Bell? Woe is you! Go get some donkey soup, brotha.

I'm so blessed, I have nothing to complain about, bless your little heart.

Bless me, that seems to be my best first world problem!

Except I'm living in the third world. Hm.

As it happens, there is a decent approximation of Chipotle directly behind my office.  As in, there's a sign on the wall saying "When I lived in America I loved Chipotle, so when I moved home I decided to start one." <-paraphrase.

So,  I had a burrito for lunch.  First world problem:  It costs about 2x as much as a Chinese lunch.

Where did it spill?

My kids lost the wireless headphones to their in-car DVD player underneath all their toys...

... so we had to pipe the soundtrack to Tinker Bell through the entire car....

... which prevented us from listening to our iTunes in the middle of the mountains.

when the foot bath in the pedicure place is too hot and you tell them and they make it too cold and it's too much hassle to try to get it right so you just have a cold pedicure.

ugh.