It's one of those days. When the universe, roads, bridges and even elevators conspire to kick you in the ass and laugh out loud.
I get the fact that where more than 50 humans set up camp, there's bound to be traffic. Cape Town is one of those cities where the first pioneers of industry and business decided that, for convenience sake, they would place all buildings in a cluster on one side of town. But as the town expands to form a cosmopolitan, bustling city of 4.5 million, how convenient is it to continue building EVERYTHING on one side of the city forcing everyone to commute to one spot of land miles away from their homes. Every single day of our breathing lives we spend valuable hours ( about 2 in my case) getting to and from this mass of buildings.
Traffic is not something I would wish upon anyone. It's soul-destroying, sets the dark tone for the beginning of your day and prompts everyone to drive like idiots.
And this is precisely how my day began. All 40 minutes of bumper-to-bumper traffic with women in big 4x4's insisting they stop on my tail whilst on a hill ( They must trust full-well that I won't roll) and men in BMWs who believe their car determines their automatic right of passage on the roads. It's enough to make you muster a whole lot of ugliness under your breath or shout aloud in your car. And this is all before you start your day in the office.
I saw my chance to escape the office at lunchtime and head to the V&A Waterfront for a breather and time to decompress. No sooner had I hit the road, that the actual road to the waterfront from my work was blocked off due to it 'collapsing'. This left me with no choice but to park on the Clock Tower side. The elevator in this parking lot was broken and me, the pleb in heels, had to scale the length of the parking just to find a way out into the light. A lady with the same predicament muttered "I bet you the bridge will be broken too."
And what do you know? Bob's your uncle and the broken bridge is undergoing maintenance. In order to get to the actual Waterfront, we now have to take a ferry ride over. Not so bad really, seen as I'll get an impromptu boat trip on my lunch break. Now the woman ( who doesn't even work) is letting rip about everything happening in 3's and her awful luck.
I blink my eyes and I've arrived on the other side. Half of my lunch break has already been consumed, but I trudge on, heels slipping through the wooden planks of the jetty. I should've cut my losses and headed back at this point, but I didn't want it all to be in vain. I can honestly say that the only thing that brought me joy was the sight of rings, a vida coffee and pretty things. Never mind the fact that I had the stomach cramps of a demon and forgot to get painkillers. The mighty pain in the balls of my feet from unplanned, long-distance walking in heels was the only deterrent to my walking all the way back to get some.
I had to repeat this entire journey just to get back to my car and return to my desk. ?I don't think I've been happier to see my desk. I really would like to laugh at it all and say "what a joke?" but it's just not that kind of a day.
What have I learnt? That perhaps I should move to a warm, small island with only a few buildings, no cars ( and therefore no parking lots and broken elevators), no traffic, only bicycles and a few stores. My bit of wishful thinking on this Day of Hazard.