First World Problems is a weekly advice column for India’s first world population. Write to Judy (confidentially!) at contact@theswaddle.com if you’ve broken a nail, felt a little blue, yellow or green lately,
or had a strange encounter of the any-numbered kind.

PROBLEM: Judy, I really want to get a dryer for my family, but my husband says it’s a waste of money when air does the same thing. (We can afford it.) But it’s so much quicker with a dryer and I’m thinking ahead to the monsoons when clothes never get fully dry and I always feel damp. How do I convince him?

“When air does the same thing”? Did he really say that? Because this is too easy. We will now demonstrate to your husband just how many things he can do without, going by his spectacular logic:

• Hide his toothbrush and comb (fingers do the same thing)
• Replace coffee with coffee powder. Ask him to glug it down with milk or water (quicker, and does the same thing)
• Set his ring tone to “I’m A Barbie Girl” when you’re going out with friends. When it rings, you can help him explain to everyone how all ring tones do the same thing.
• And when you get back home, decline sex (Ha ha ha because … guess what?)

Hopefully, he’ll get the picture and also think you’re hilarious. If you’re sure that’s not going to be the case, just get the dryer without his permission and use it on everyone’s clothes but his. When he asks you why he’s the only one walking around in damp chuddies, you can tell him that you took his advice and you’re hanging him out to dry. Ha ha ha, I kill myself.

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PROBLEM: Our neighbors are renovating their flat. The construction noises start at the oddest hours of the day, waking us up in the early morning with hammering, or sudden drilling as we’re getting ready for bed at night. I’ve asked them to keep the construction to decent hours (we have kids) and they’ve promised they will, but keep breaking their promise. What do I do?

Can’t you get some of the other people (preferably, the nasty ones or the ones with rotweillers) in the building to let them know this is unacceptable? Why not get the building committee involved? They don’t have to know it’s you. In fact, I’m very surprised that no one else seems to have a problem with this.

Also, why would construction guys show up at those hours? This is all very strange and reeks of something creepy and morbid. What if it’s a murder house and this whole construction thing is a smoke-screen to drown out all the screaming? What if you’re living right next door to serial killers? It’s happened before, you know. But I wouldn’t worry. As Jerry Seinfeld once astutely observed, “If there’s a serial killer loose in your neighbourhood, it seems like the safest thing is to be the neighbour. They never kill the neighbour.”