Thank God It's Friday

Today, I hate everything. 

Except Coolio, our new fridge, whom I pet lovingly sometimes.  I can make chapattis on him and he is cold and beautiful.

Except that Butters has gone away somewhere for the weekend and I will cook and eat until it comes out my ears. 

Except that we have a lot of water. 

But I hate everything else.

I’m pretty sure I have a rat or some unidentified large rustling thing that visits my bags every night. 

God knows what it’s doing or what it’s eating or why it exists. 

I plan not to deal with it in any shape or form until it gives me the bubonic plague and I die.

I’m pretty sure it got in through the large gap between my balcony door and the floor, through which dust, dirt, large rocks, rain, and hail regularly make a visit.  Do you know how demoralizing it is to have that little demon wake me up at midnight for the past two nights?

On the other hand, whatever bugs were biting me have stopped just as suddenly as they started.

I’m starting to believe Butters – maybe all of this is psychosomatic.  Maybe I do need a psych evaluation.  Maybe there aren’t any bites on my upper body and no rustling noises at midnight – just me and my frustration.

I wouldn’t be surprised.  The young girls downstairs have taken to asking me for biscuits and our landlord told me not to hang wet clothes on our clothesline.

Sometimes there is literally no other recourse than to imagine oneself as John Cleese in Fawlty Towers sneering out British sarcasm through gritted teeth to deal with daily madness.   

Right – I’ll just wait until they’re dry before hanging them out to dry, shall I?  Would that be convenient for you?

So now we have two weeks’-worth of Butters’ laundry hanging in our living room as the other options are:

• Waiting until they’re dry to hang on our backdoor clothesline 
• Hanging them on our frontdoor clothesline, which regularly receives showers of dirt, dust, and plaster and absolutely no sunlight

I really don’t care about the laundry in the living room (except that I generally like the smell of sunshine in my clothes) and Butters is so chill he’s almost comatose.  However, we’re still expecting the arrival of a roomie, and she might prefer a living room with couches and a coffee table instead of socks and underwear. 

But who really knows.

At this point, we could have to take in a family of Congolese and build a fourth floor to our apartment to move there in December and I would do no more than roll my eyes and ask for some nails and a hammer. 

Maybe a handful of Xanax to control my facial expressions and British accent. 

I had been doing pretty well until we went on a field trip yesterday.  The hour-long ride over literally a mud track was somewhat surprising, but still beautiful.  My face started acting up when we were seated in an office in a partner hospital where we’d been running self-help groups since January.

“Self-help groups?” questioned the Doctor in Charge [of Making things Difficult on Thursdays - MD].

“Yes, for psychological support – as we’re working to integrate mental health care in--” 

“What self-help groups?”  

“Er, yes, we’re trying to integrate mental health care, but as there cannot be a clinical psychologist in every hospital, we started self-help groups for those with general--”

“I didn’t know anything about self-help groups,” he concluded helpfully.

“Welp, you’ve been having them.  So now we’d like to make it official – have an office here, get a dude up on some psych stuff to be the contact point...”

“But the self-help groups--”

“Forget the self-help groups.”

“But--”

“No.  We need you to pick a dude and a room where we can put a book and some pens.  Deal with it.”

This doctor was not the usual Doctor in Charge [of General Obstacle-Creation] – he was at a seminar.  As seminars here consist of free food and an incentive (otherwise known as free money), most officials try to attend as many as possible.  It’s just like in Canada, but there we do it just for funsies.  When I later informed my team that educational training and seminars in the West are usually paid for out-of-pocket, they were worried.  

At long last, the bottom line came into view from the pile of smiles and I don’t know what self-help groups you’re talking about:  “Is there anything the hospital gets out of this?”

“Uhm.  Better care for your patients?”

The doctor steepled his fingers meditatively.  And waited.

“Uhm.  The person you choose is going to get a small – a very small – incentive.  Mostly because he or she is going to need to buy phone credits to keep in touch with us and send us regular reports.”  

The Doctor in Charge of Thursday’s Problems shook his head regretfully.  “This will be difficult,” he sighed.  “Very difficult.”

Very difficult indeed. 

Made more difficult by the candid admission on the way back that one of the officials on our team would have done the same in his place. 

I goggled at him. 

Then I launched into a sermon on individual change and affecting your circle of influence.  He said he learned a lot, but I think it was just to get me to shut up. 

And I’ve been cranky ever since.  A confirmation that we will be moving to the third floor has further annoyed me; I don’t know how I’m going to break it to the rat in my bags.      

I think God gave me a weekend alone for the same reason He warned Cain not to be upset – if he did what was right, he’d be accepted.

Today, I need a special dose of peace and forgiveness.  I am not handling my emotions well, and usually this means I am on a steady path towards a blow up of ignoble proportions at someone who likely doesn’t deserve it, for which I will be hideously embarrassed for years afterward.

Today, I need grace.