Bad CAR-ma

Have you ever just had one of THOSE days? ? ?

I am sure you have . . .we, sadly, all have.

The type of day where nothing goes your way, in fact it seems like everything is deliberately conspiring to go against you.

The last 24 hours has seemed a bit like that for me. It wasn’t like I woke up and knew it was just going to be one of those days…NO! that would be too easy, that way I could have prepared and braced myself and got through it. . . nope, this was one of those THOSE days that sneaks up in the middle of a seemingly good day and yells, “gotcha!”

So the day was progressing well. My boss wasn’t in, my work was chilled and caught up. I was given the privilege of leaving early, which meant I could accomplish the errands I needed to without eating into my weekend time. First errand runs smoothly. Its all good. And then it happens.

I leave the store after my second errand, feeling a little tired and dizzy from bad sinus, thinking one more errand and the day is done and I can go home put my feet up and rest. I walk over to where I parked my tiny little red car. Seriously she is a little thing. And immediately I hear that sneaky “gotcha” voice. A rather large taxi had parked next to me. This guy was a real pro. He had parked in a way that he was so close to me I could fit between him and my car to get to my driver’s door, let alone be able to open it. Also having a car almost twice the size of mine, combined with the angle he parked, spilling over into my parking bay, even if I managed to clamour over the passenger seat, in my high-heels and dress, I wouldn’t be able to reverse anyway.

Now this was not the best part of town to be in, in the first place. [exhale mom, I am ok, nothing untoward happened]. But I’m tired, its hot, I am a little paranoid and I am stuck. So I start speaking to the carguard. [for foreign friends …we have people in our parking lots who keep an eye on your car so that nothing bad happens to it and direct you in and out of parking bays. And we give them a small token/ tip as a thank you.] So I tell him that I am really quite irritated with this taxi, does he know how long the driver will be. He smiles that knowing smile that says, he could be parked here all day. Thankfully the car in front of me left…so I clamoured ungracefully over my passenger seat and into the driver’s seat. I tell the carguard to inform the taxi driver that I said “horrible things about him. I also put a curse on him and hid a snake in his car.” I was joking, well kind of, but the poor carguard went pale and big eyed and stammered. “no, no mam, please you must not say this. This is very bad thing to say.” They are a very superstitious culture, and part of that includes fear of snakes. I smiled and drove off to my final errand.

I hit one of the busiest supermarkets, and on top of it, it was Friday afternoon. I lost count of the amount of times someone bumped me with their trolley/shopping cart/ whatever your nation calls it.  Or the amount of times people simply stopped, blocking the aisle you were trying to go down, because they decided to talk to a friend or answer their phone. It was chaos but I survived it, feeling more tired than I started but I survived. I pay the bill, grab my purchases and head out the door only to hear…BEEP! Now I never set the alarms off. 3 security guards rush at me. I kid you not, I must look very intimidating to need 3 attending to me.  And the search begins. They unpack every item I have bought and check them. They then add one item into the bag/packet/whatever your nation calls it. And walk through the scanner. No beep. Good. Add another item. Repeat the process. I kid you not. I had two full bags/packets/whatever your nation calls it. Two full ones.  Mid way through they decide to search my bag and pockets. Nothing. Continue the process. Now I am super tired, trying to be super gracious. But really. Eventually they are down to 4 items. 3 of which are chocolates. [don’t judge me, after a day like this it’s a surprise I didn’t eat all 3 last night.]  and the one security guy goes, “oh yes, of course, we forgot the chocolates now have antitheft things on them. We really should tell the cashiers to remove them upon purchase.”

Yes. It really happened. So then we clear that all up, I get in my little red darling of a car, and head home. Looking more and more forward to being there. The road heading toward my house is recently graded and sure as nuts a car decides to overtake me, not just on a blind rise but also at a blinding speed, spraying gravel against my car. I exhale and almost shake my head in disbelief. I turn into my road, my house is in sight, except wait for it….a car parked in the road on a blind corner, half blocking my driveway. Yes. Not just a car, a massive 4x4 pickup truck/bakkie/whatever you call it in your nation. Now the person was collecting their kid from the preschool next to my house. The preschool driveway had NO other cars in it. So no reason they couldn’t pull into the driveway. I see there is someone sitting in the bakkie/pickup and flash my lights. They politely respond by putting their hazards on. So I hoot. [not sure what other nations call it]. They guy collecting his little girl, looks out in my direction and smiles and waves. Now I’ve finally had it. I sit with my hand on the hoot/blast the horn/whatever you call it in your nation. So the guy finally takes his precious little girls hand, strolls slowly, not towards his own car but towards mine and knocks on my window. I roll it down and he looks at me and says, “you know it’s very inconsiderate that you hooted.” I was so stunned, that this illegally parked – inconsiderate person would say that to me, that I luckily was speechless.

Thankfully I finally made it home, and had an uneventful rest of the evening, but then this morning Car-ma woke up with a vengeance. I pull out my gate, and am hoping to pull into my road and get myself off to work. I have deliberately left half an hour early because we had an early patient coming into the rooms and I wanted to make sure everything was good to go. I pause in my driveway to watch the gate close and then look forward to make sure the road was clear….not a chance. Same pre-school, same road, different drivers. But this time they were even more clever, there was one on either side of the road. So both lanes were blocked. Both on a blind corner, both having vacated their vehicles and taken their kids inside. Ugh. What is it with cars?!?!?!. Eventually they leave, again giving me dirty looks at my inconsiderate behaviour of placing my hand on the part of my steering wheel that causes a loud sound to be released.

And we’re off, manoeuvring our way down the gravel path, avoiding stones spewing up on either side, I hit the freeway, it’s all looking good, come around a corner and “screech” slam on the brakes. Traffic is at a standstill.  I inch my way along for the next half an hour, so slowly that I never get a chance to change out of first gear.  Thankfully the radio was playing some great songs, and we were at a complete standstill often enough that I could contact my boss and inform her I would possibly be late. She replied to say she was stuck in the same traffic mess. Finally, we see the cause of the situation. In the space of 20 meters [if that] two separate accidents had occurred. It is a two lane freeway in the direction I am heading and somehow each accident had occurred in one of those lanes. Hence both lanes were trying to merge and squish between the two. I inch through that and think, it’s finally over, but traffic doesn’t seem to be moving any faster. Another 20 minutes later we pass a truck that had taken a corner in the fast lane to wide and dovetailed, cutting off the fast lane of traffic. Ugh….grunt….CARS!!!! really!

I pass the truck and let my foot rest heavily on the accelerator, glad to be able to change out of first gear. I reach my parking bay at work, knowing I have 2 minutes to make it up to the main hospital building and into my office on the first floor to be on time for the patients, if they weren’t early. Our staff parking is so far from the main building that a golf cart gives us a lift up. as I open my door I see the last seat on the golf cart being occupied. So I ran up the stairs, that cut into the steep back, all the way across the doctors parking lot and into the main hospital building and up the stairs, and as I enter my corridor I see the patient arriving just ahead of me. I was so breathless I couldn’t even greet them. Yup, it seems it was one of those Car-ma days. Thankfully it seems to have given me a break and the rest of it has gone quite smoothly. I can only hope it continues to leave me alone for the rest of the weekend.