I wasn’t allowed to cross the Street
Thanks to a genius idea by some entrepreneur who decided that the carpark lot I have been renting the past 2 years from BMMI one building away from the Bank I work for was permanently closed down and a hotel is now to be built in its place.
I didn’t have much of a choice, it was either I pay 70 dinars a month to rent a parking lot in the carpark building (which is also full by the way, and I had to pull some strings just to get them to offer me a spot) or just park right under the Financial Harbor… for free.
It didn’t take much thinking, the very next morning I turned my car around heading to the financial harbor and fixed my mobile’s stop watch to time the gap between the red lights on the traffic light I had to cross.
Five minutes exactly; gave me all the time I needed to park the car, fix my sunshade and walk to the traffic light as it turned red signaling me to cross.
Everything worked like a charm, until last Thursday.
As I was heading back to the car from work, 7:30 PM I was stopped by a uniformed police officer right beside the stop light, he was waving that I turned left.. I really didn’t recognize what he was trying to say till I approached him.
His teeth caught all my attention, the were as BROWN.. no no no, I don’t mean brownish white.. I mean.. BROWN! It was the most disgusting thing I have seen in ages, I froze there staring at them.. thinking.. what on god’s green earth could have caused this? Tobacco? No way!! Qat? Lack of fluoride in drinking water?
All of a sudden pieces of the article I have read in wikipedia about the contaminated drinking water in Yemen ran to my head before he actually opened his mouth even louder..
Me: مسامحة يالطيب، بس بعبر الشارع.. اكي سيارتي البيضة القرمبعة اللي هناك
Him: اقولك ممنوع.. مايصير
Me (Thinking): What on earth is wrong with the retard! I can’t believe he won’t let me cross the road, he is still signaling me to go away.
Him: اقولك ممنوع.. ماتفهم؟
Me (Thinking): I can’t believe you have the guts to actually speak to people with teeth like those, I wonder if you even have a mirror at home!
Me: وشبتسوي اذا عبرت الشارع يعني.. بتوقفني؟
Him: ممنوع.. ممنوع.. روح اركب جسر المشاة اللي هناك واعبر
Me: نعم؟ تبيني امشي لين هناك وارد ارجع؟ اكي سيارتي قبالي هناك
Him: ممنوووووووع ممنوع
Me: عندك مسدس؟
Him: لا.. بس في مسدس في الجيب
What used to be a 5 minute walk to my car is now taking 15 minutes, all of this after an 8 hours shift.. That is just about enough to keep me nagging and cursing all the time till I reached the car.
It wasn’t till the next day that I told the story to my laughing father, when I knew that there were “royal convoys” driving across the highway at that time back from Kuwait.
I still don’t get it, whoever was in those cars was either driving along the highway or stopping at the stoplight (Which is highly considering the number of uniformed officers at the traffic junction). Why wasn’t I allowed to cross the damn street!!
What kind of security precaution will have the pedestrians not crossing a street to their cars, but have them wandering all the way on the side of the highway right beside the speeding cars!
God raises whom he wishes and puts down whom he wishes. Be thankful for your blessings! If you see something wrong give your advice and move on. No need to dramatise ethnic differences. If you were arguing with a cop like that in Toledo, USA you would be in a jail cell within 10 min. And I am sure you don’t behave like that with cops in Geneva either.
Oh and does the prime minster, speaker of the house and the president of the congress get to travel in “royal convoys” causing even worse traffic jams in one of the major congested country’s highways and keeping pedestrians off traffic light crossings just so that they get an smooth ride to the airport as well?
I bet if u were a girl – he would have let u cross the road!!
I think you’re being melodramatic a bit
..and what do his poor teeth have to do with extending your daily route for one day?
very insulting, mohd,, expected a more reasonable approach to the absurd than this..
Cheer Up …
Wow! This blog looks just like my old one! It’s on a completely different topic but it has pretty much the same layout and design. Excellent choice of colors!