Tuesday, October 15, 2013

When khalas means khalas, or how I panicked and rented a truck when I should have just called a taxi

I moved recently and setting up the new place has been more work than I thought it would be. One of the things I've been obsessed with is setting up my balcony - how great is it to have a balcony just as the weather is getting so awesome?

He looks like he's been caught doing something wrong, but he's really just unloading my stuff. 
Anyway, on a recent Friday I was tearing around the city like a maniac, stopping at IKEA and Ace Hardware, and the plant souk, and by the end of it my little rental Nissan Micra was chock full of stuff. One last stop at Spinneys before heading home, unloading my car with what I was sure would be the help of my building's security, getting changed to go to my friend's house for a special dinner, I thought.

But when I got back to my car, it was totally dead. A car full of stuff, a lot of it live, expensive plants, searing heat - it did not seem feasible to just let it sit there. No one answered at the rental place, of course. Rather than calling a taxi, rather than calling Triple A, which is what I now know you are supposed to do when a rental car dies, I panicked. One second later, I spotted one of those big white trucks. You know the kind, with a flat bed and white railings out back, the kind where the guys fleece you when you try to hire them? The kind I once paid Dh400 to move a sofa half a block? Yes, that kind. I approached to see if the driver might be able to get me and my stuff home in a reasonable time, for a reasonable price. He was very friendly, and agreed to the operation for Dh100.

And we were off. Don't you love the way these guys decorate their trucks?

How to be a happy expat

Because a cloud wall makes you want to take a selfie.  After 10 years living in the UAE, some of that time happy, some miserable and ...