A rant

Let me tell you about my day, anyone who dares to read.

If you don't want to read rambling ranting, I suggest you stop reading now.

I got to work early today. The client sent a ridiculous e-mail telling me how "Gravely disappointed" she was that I was unable to provide any analysis of the data at this point in the project. I tried to explain to her that there IS NO DATA at this point in the project, but that didn't make it less irritating. She also was sour that I hadn't gotten back to her yesterday (I wasn't in the office) even though she wasn't in the office yesterday either, and didnt check her e-mails until after noon today (well after I had sent her everything she needed that I could provide).

Anita and Omar did me a HUGE favour today, and drove 1/2 way across Cairo to sit and wait for the Gas company to come and install my boiler. They waited and waited and waited and the Gas company never came. They both wasted their entire day for me, and I still have NO HOT WATER. It's coming up on 2 months now, and this is the 3rd appointment the boiler company has missed. (Each time they claim that they came to the apartment, knocked, and no one was here. Riiiiight.)

I ordered a coffee at 9am sharp this morning. My co-workers arrived at 9:45. At 10am the office boy (who is female) brought 7 coffees---for my 7 co-workers---and then announced to me (I'm the only one who speaks any arabic, and she doesn't speak any english) that they ran out of milk, and she can't make me coffee until more comes. More came at 5:30pm.

It might have seemed strange to put coffee on someone's desk at 6pm, but I guess the office boy (girl) knew something I didn't---I was going to stay at the office until 9pm. I managed to mangle the codeframe I was working on (it was the first one I've ever done) and needed to re-start the whole process at about 3pm. Apparently I'm not so good at those.

I left the office just before 9pm, and much to my surprise, MY COMMUTE was the highlight of my day. In that it only took 45 minutes (to go 11 miles) and I only fought with one other driver.

Then I got to my parking spot. Except it wasn't my parking spot, because someone else had parked there. And my parking guy didn't have the keys. Or the keys to ANY OTHER CAR PARKED IN MY LOT. But he told me the guy was coming back in 5 minutes. So I waited, and then I waited 30 minutes more. Then I called the head parking guy, made a stink, and waited some more. After an hour (to the second) of waiting, I still hadn't parked. SO I ventured around to find a new spot. I parked my shiny new car in some much-too-small space in a heavily traversed alleyway, in front of a bakery.

Fair Enough, because now it was 10:40. 10:40, almost 2 hours after I had to put in more eye-medicine and they were THROBBING.

So I came into the building and tried my elevator. Stuck. I tried the second Elevator. Stuck. So I hoofed it up 6 flights of stairs, in heels. When I arrived at my hallway, I almost decided to hoof it back DOWN the stairs.

The cats have returned. They brought friends---a swarm of nasty (flying!) cockroaches. They also left me some really, really gross excrement-related presents on my doorstep. But I didn't flee. Instead I managed to step over the poo into my apartment without letting any flying cockroaches into my apartment. I let one flying creature, roughly the size of a dragonfly into my house (by accident) and it is buzzing and flying around like crazy. And making ME crazy.

By the time I got to put my first batch of medicine in, my eyes had all but crusted completely over. I had to scrub my eyes with warm water before I could even put the drops in. As soon as I finished that, I decided that I needed a little R+R. A Bubble bath was right out, as I have no hot water, so I decided to make a cup of tea and start dinner. But I had No matches. Not a single one. So I can't even light my stove.

So I put the heels back on, and hoofed it back out of the apartment, past the roaches and the poo, back down the stairs, across the street, bought some cheap little matches and hoofed it back up here.

Last night, after wahied managed to wrangle that woman into her ambulance, and he boarded a bus with his group, his saga continued. His bus broke down on the side of the highway towards Suez. Shortly before that he discovered that his wallet, ID and license were missing. He then got to stay up all night dealing with police (in relation to the bus incident).

Needless to say, he is a bit stressed out at the moment, and distinctly didn't want to hear about any more problems that he's unable to solve. But I have managed to convince myself that SOMEONE wants to hear about how bad my day was. Actually, I'm aware that no one wants to hear how bad my day was, but I feel a whole lot better now that I've written it.

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I'm going to go back to the doctor to get my eyes re-evaluated, then I'm going to relax, because tomorrow is Thursday. And we all know what "Thursday" means in Egypt. It means the same thing that "Friday" means wherever you all are. And it also means that I'm one day closer to seeing Wahied (Friday) the Gas company's next attempt (Saturday) and the beginning of another long work week (Sunday).

But now it's after 11pm, and I need to make and eat some food, un-goop my eyes, and go to bed. For those of you who have made it this far...thank you. I promise I'll be back to myself and out of rant-y mode next time. Cheers, Lisy.