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If only the day was a page you could turn over

Take my advice. If anyone tells you they are doing something for your own good - give them a wide berth.

Several things ticked me off yesterday. On three separate occasions three idiots parked their vehicles on and across the white line ensuring that they had invaded the second square so that when you came back to your car there was 5.6 inches between your door and the side of that badly parked car and you had to perform a Houdini to get in without denting the enemy. Then you find the enemy has already dented you, that thin surgical line streaking your paintwork. And have you noticed, it does not matter what colour your car is, the other will be dramatically different and by the third time I was ready for battle. It does not require rocket science to calculate that the rectangle box with white lines is for parking within them not on or over them. That is why the traffic authorities have put them on the road, so that you can parallel park, the operative word being parallel not haphazard.

It is in this teed off 'three scratches on the car mood' that I go to meet someone who is unfashionably late since I believe there is nothing fashionable about being late. It shows a lack of consideration and is not a sign of how powerful you are. On the contrary. Naturally, there is no apology, nothing, like so what is 60 minutes spent reading a two-year-old copy of some magazine. Then he begins to advise me. And he says it is for my own good. I cannot stand people who have my good at heart and say it. They are like people who tell you to ease up, smell the flowers, don't take it personally, don't mind if I speak my mind, can I be frank and other such irritating stuff. Especially when they want to set it to music. When someone says can you take the truth or let me give it to you straight, there is this bubbling desire to smack them. Oh please, the lord save us from the pious. You have no interest in what's good for me. You just want to be a hero in your own scenario and impose on me. That badly parked car and the intrusion of people like this, same difference. They just block your path. Give you a hard time. Take my advice. If anyone tells you they are doing something for your own good (own being redundant because if they are talking to you why say 'own') give them a wide berth. Run as fast as you can, before they trap you.

And then after this exhausting meeting I am on Sheikh Zayed Road in the slow lane doing a steady eighty clicks when there is a slowdown and I ease down to a standstill at which point this guy in the same lane behind me whacks into my rear with the ghastly crunch of metal sound. Now we are on the shoulder and I could cry and the guy he is sorry, but he couldn't stop in time and the day is not even half over.

Finally I enter office in tres foul mood only to get a call from the house to say the A/C is leaking water like a tap and that Daisy our cocker spaniel has trotted off because someone left the door open. Oh great. And the Dewa bill is due today and the reminder is flashing on the phone and you wonder if the day was a page in a book you could just turn it over and go to tomorrow.

It is just the sort of day when you are in a bad mood and nothing is going right that the Fates fall over with laughter and create a crisis in the office. What better day than today?

Crisis semi resolved to no one's satisfaction you stagger home hoping this is it and you can wind down and relaaaaax and your wife says we have people for dinner, did you forget to bring the ice cream, one simple errand and even that you forget. Aaaaaaaaah. - bikram@khaleejtimes.com