Lebanon Blues

I know the world was waiting in eager anticipation yesterday for yet another super thrilling installment of Trashy Tuesday, but I was unable to keep my blogging obligations because of illness. For the umpteenth time since moving to Lebanon, I am going through a bout of food poisoning. Yes, yesterday was pretty bad, which got me thinking about really bad days. The thing is, you never really know ahead of time when a day is going to go bad, but I usually have a sense of foreboding that starts with a series of telltale signs.

On any given workday, I know it’s going to be bad when:

-- I oversleep. I don’t know how this happens, since I have an 'internal' alarm clock and never sleep in accidentally. Technically, I always wake up on time, the problem with me is actually getting out of bed. I always think I have five more minutes to spare before its imperative that I roll out and start to get ready. I know it’s going to be a bad day when that five minutes ‘accidentally’ turns into 50 and I have basically two minutes to make a deadline. The end result is frantically spending the day in front of my laptop in a tracksuit (okay, pyjamas) that’s seen better days and seriously bad hair.

-- I’m running late (as usual) on the way to a meeting and I’m sandwiched in between a truck in front of me and an ancient taxi moving at a snail’s pace to the right on a two lane road. I try to weave my way out of such obstacle courses as soon as they arise, which usually results in offensive hand gestures and rude comments mouthed through windshields from others on the road. Although, it could be argued that my driving warrants such reactions, nothing ruins my day more than someone swearing at me on the road.

-- I need to pick up a check (YEY!) and all the parking lots are full and there are no free spots on the street. Unlike 99.9% of Lebanese, I don’t have the balls to park illegally, especially with the recent swell in ticket hungry cops. With all the criminal acts going on in the country, for some reason haphazardly parked cars seem to be the number one concern for our police officers. Murder, theft … what are these next to the virtual goldmine of parking violations? Nice to know that to our men in blue ‘keeping the peace’ only refers to parked cars.

--When I have to share an elevator. Okay, this may sound a little weird, and perhaps slightly petty, but I absolutely hate sharing the elevator with people I don’t know. When I’m on my way to a meeting, I just can’t be bothered to make pleasantries with other people. Plus, if there’s someone in there with you, you can’t fix any embarrassing fashion mishaps that you may have missed in your haste to get ready. Not to mention that stopping on other floors delays you if you’re running late (as usual) – it’s in those final seconds that I feel the most anxious to just get there already. I get so annoyed when I’ve waited for what seems like forever for the elevator to arrive, only to have two people come in with me: one going on the first floor (which irritates me to no end because, seriously, who is so lazy that they can’t climb one flight of stairs), and the second going on the floor just before mine (which I can’t stand because that only gives me one floor to primp in front of the mirror).

Oh well, sometimes bad days happen to good people. When the nasty stuff begins to hit the fan, just remember that, in the infamous words of Scarlet O’Hara, “Tomorrow is another day!”