Are you kidding me?

I was planning to go to Dubai in just over a week but I’m suddenly reminded, I’d forgotten you see, that people important to me would not be there next week. So, I try to rearrange my schedule immediately. Most of my contacts are flexible but one had a tight schedule and was struggling to find a new time to meet me, if not next week, then they could only meet me tomorrow! I’m on a different continent but what the Hell, I like a challenge. I book the hotel rooms and call the travel agent about my flights. Good, they can book me on a flight today and I will arrive in the Middle East tonight. Marvelous! Now all I need to do is run out of the office, drive home, pick up my bags, grab a taxi and get to the airport…………..quickly. What could go possibly wrong?

As I leave the office and join the main road I find myself behind a Learner Driver…..a very Learner Driver. Driving at about half the speed limit and constantly braking. Even when his indicators are blinking at every junction but he’s not turning off, I still keep calm. We have all been that driver right? Finally I get passed and reach the motorway. No sooner am I on the two lane highway when a slow moving bus switches into the overtaking lane and he is determined to pass a slower moving truck. The speed difference between these two Behemoths of the road is about 1km/h. I swear the truck was, at times, winning the race against the bus. It took for EVER but eventually the bus won and pulled into the same lane ahead of the truck. I accelerated passed them both. No problem, I can make up the lost time because I'm on the highway and it is not rush hour. How wrong I was.........

You have to be kidding me!!! W..T...F??????A police car ahead! Now every car in the overtaking lane is driving well below the speed limit and refusing to pass the police car. I now find myself cursing  the other drivers and start tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. Oh joy of joys, the Police car does not look like he is leaving the motorway. any time soon. Brilliant, I’m not just going slowly now, I’m aging rapidly too! Finally, I exit the motorway and hit the main roads.........with their trafiic lights and, you guessed it, each and every bloody one of them turns red as I approach them. No no no no no! This was not in my horoscope this morning and they are NEVER wrong! How can Jupiter entering a lunar phase ever lie? Just ask Oprah.

I am stressed now, there is no point denying it and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll make it to the airport on time. Just as I see the turn off for my home, there is a pedestrian crossing and there, trying to cross it, must be the largest group of Kindergarten children EVER! No one, on this planet, is in less of a hurry to cross a road than a three year old. I’m now looking at about thirty of them, in pairs, clothed in highly reflective vests and seemingly tied together by a long piece of rope. As the teachers marshall them across the road, it is like watching someone trying to herd kittens. Come on Ladies! Get these kids moving! I have a plane to catch! I was getting desperate and actually considered honking my horn and forcing he children out of the way. I didn’t, of course I didn't, but only because I realized that my car would instantly resemble a weird wedding car. Instead of old beer cans being dragged behind it, there would be two and three year olds bouncing along the road on a rope behind me. Hardly a beautiful “Bon Voyage” scene to behold. Instead, I just began mumbling to myself.

Eventually the children were marshalled across the road and I arrive home shortly afterwards. My bags are always packed and it was just a case of picking them up.

I call the taxi company……..”Please hold. All our operators are busy right now. Please hold.” Hold? HOLD????? I’ll give you bloody “Hold”. I continue to swear for the next five minutes when a voice from the phone suddenly asks me where I want to go?

“The airport!.” I snapped.

“Where would you like to be picked up?” she asked.

“Statsminister Michelsensveg thirty eight, please, “ came my urgent response.

“Could you spell that please?” she asked very calmly.

“Spell it? I could hardly bloody pronounce it!” So I bit my lip and began….”Sierra……Tango……..Alpha…” until I finished spelling it.....some minutes later.

Luck at last! A taxi was not far away and it arrived quite quickly. A jovial driver who wants to talk. Like I am in the mood to discuss the bloody weather! Instead, I’m on the phone to my wife explaining that I won’t be home for dinner….for a few days. She is brilliant and reacts very calmly, she knows the job I’m in and never complains.

Then ahead, I saw........... approaching the same pedestrian crossing as before, the same group of pre-schoolers but on their return journey.

“Go faster! Floor it! PLEEEEEASE!” I scream at the driver.

“But it is only forty here,” he replies.

Despite my pleadings with the driver, we lost the race to the crossing. I could only marvel again at the circus crossing the road in front of me. Equally as slow and, to make matters worse, the children are all waving at my taxi as they pass in front of it. They are mocking me! I just know it!

Road works and reduced speed limits at numerous  places on the way to airport did not help my race to make my flight.......or my Tourettes.

I was not able to check in online, no matter how hard I stabbed at my phone's screen, as something was wrong with “the system”. By this stage I’m convinced the conspiracy against me had grown to Nation State levels. Was that a drone I could hear?

Stressed, sweating and developing a facial tick, we reach the airport and ultimately the check-in desk.

I had serious doubts when the lovely lady told me I was lucky. My flight had been delayed, otherwise I would have been too late to check in. As the relief washed over me, I was almost reduced to tears as the check-in lady casually asked me, “So........ how has your day been so far?”