Sunday, January 22, 2006

Sorry and stupid drivers

I was driving home yesterday and a song came on Radio 1. I was listening to it absent-mindedly, when suddenly one word caught my attention: at one point in the song, the singer says the word "sleikha", which is the Hebrew word for "sorry". It really surprised me. I thought it was odd that this song, with a Hebrew word in the middle of it, is being played on national radio...Maybe no one realises what this word means, which is why it hasn't been edited out...or maybe no one cares...Not that I care either, but usually, in the UAE, any reference to Israel (except for the news) is edited out.

Anyway, I got home and mentioned this in front of my sister, who told me that it was Madonna's new song (called "Sorry"). I was initially very surprised to learn it was one of her songs, as it did not sound too "madonna-esque". The song is a bit too "dancey" and cheesy to be a Madonna song. But then the word "sleikha" made sense, given Madonna's trend-setting adoption of Kabbalah as her religion of choice.

Change of subject: can I just take a brief moment to rant about one particular bad driver I encountered this morning?

It was my usual Sunday morning drive from A-D to my work in Media City (I spend most weekends in A-D with la familia). The A-D/Dubai drive took just 45 minutes, but then I hit the Media City exit, which was particularly busy this morning. But I waited in line, just like everyone else. I was on the one-way road (before the Emirates Hills roundabout), and all of sudden, I see this car trying to pass from my right! On a narrow one-way road!

That put me in such a bad mood! Who the hell does this person think she is? After honking at her and giving her a dirty look, I did not let her pass, and decided to stick as closely as possible to the car in front of me. She finally squeezed in behind me.

I drive on, only to see her try to overtake me again from my right. I was fuming! At this point, I had been trying to get to work for the past 35 minutes, and I did not understand why I had to spend almost as much time getting through the last kilometer or so, when it took me just 45 minutes to drive 120 kilometers from A-D! Anyway, the woman in the car ended up passing me and went ahead of me (despite my best efforts to stop her from getting through. But in the end I gave up as I did not want to get into an accident because of someone so stupid)... But I did honk at her for a good 7 seconds.

All this for what? So she could get to work a minute earlier than the rest of us? Was she really in that much of a rush? Was she more in a rush than I was to get to work? Why could she not wait patiently in line like everyone else was? Does she not realise it's idiotic drivers like her that are the cause of delays, traffic and accidents?

So: to the driver of the white Nissan, with a 4-90176 license plate, remember this: what goes around comes around.

Phew...I feel much better now :)

5 comments:

moryarti said...

طولي بالك العملية منّا مستاهله كل هالعصبية .. :)

nzm said...

Annoying as it may be - the sooner that you can laugh it off and get on with it, the better off you'll be. At least, this is what I tell myself everytime I see one of these idiots on the road and my hackles start to rise!

And yes - take comfort in the fact that kismet will someday turn around and bite them back!

Moryarti - is that Farsi? (sorry - joke carrying on from some comments left on my blog!) lol :-))

cheers
nzm

moryarti said...

lol :)

sorry about that .. no, i don't speak farsi .. that was arabic. I was saying "take is easy .. its not worth it :)"

Dubai Sunshine said...

You are so right Moryarti and NZM...It's not worth getting upset over this. There are so many more important things in life.

I think it was just an accumlation of being tired from the drive to Dubai, being stuck in traffic for over 30 minutes, barely moving a few inches, seeing all those heavy duty trucks delaying traffic, and then THIS! It was the straw that broke the camel's back. Why can't people just be nice and obey the rules?

nzm said...

Why can't people just be nice and obey the rules?

Because if all of them did this, then the ones (like us) who now obey wouldn't look like the angels that we are!

lol