My Ugly American Moment

TRAVEL THERE: WHERE ARE MY RUBY SLIPPERS WHEN I NEED THEM?

So, I’m in Dahab and I’m not happy about it.  I usually try to make the best of any situation, but for once, I just wasn’t.  I was being an ugly American.

Welcome to Dahab Paradise

All the way from Sharm I had tried to convince myself that Dahab Paradise wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought and the initial impression made me feel a little better. Then we went to the room. It had a big balcony and a lot of charm, but it was tiny and didn’t exactly have the basic comforts of home. Let’s not talk about the bath. It was clean, but that’s all it had to recommend it. I was trying to decide which emotion was strongest – frustration, anger or fear.

In the few moments it took to make an inspection of the minuscule space, Bill fell on the bed and went to sleep.  He claims he was merely exhausted, but I think his emotional radar warned him trouble was brewing.  Interrupting one of his naps is a really bad choice, so I tried going to the balcony.  Gale force winds drove me back inside.

There was no place to sit inside the room, except the bed and Bill was taking his half in the middle. I thought of going out, but I couldn’t decide what I would do. The wind made sitting by the pool a non-starter and there hadn’t been any sign of a bar in the small lobby. Besides, I had no idea where Bill had put the key.  While I was quite angry with him, I didn’t want any of the Bedouins or radical Islamist the State Department had warned me about to come in and steal him away. 

So, I sat on a small corner of the bed and tried to entertain myself. I caught up in my travel journal, read a book and worked some crossword puzzles. This was some kind of nap he was taking.

Part of my problem was that I was getting very hungry, but since I didn’t have my head screwed on right, I didn’t recognize it as a rapidly declining sugar level complicated by dehydration.  I just sat there getting angrier and angrier. By the time Bill woke up I was in a full pout and he didn’t even do me the courtesy of acknowledging it.

Re-joining the Human Race

The wind had died down a little bit and a trip to the balcony revealed everyone was at the pool. I followed Bill down to join them and finally someone noticed I was pouting. I think it was the groom. After some gentle ribbing about my demeanor, I realized I needed to straighten up.  I wasn’t happy to be there, but I’m not the kind who wants to ruin it for everyone else.

I also realized I was hungry, so Bill ordered some food.  After a few bites, the world seemed to be a tiny bit better.  Since I am writing this blog, it’s obvious that we were not attacked by Bedouins, radical Islamist or even your run of the mill thieves while we visited Dahab, but that was part of the problem.

Bill is the luckiest person alive. He lives on the edge of the envelope with aplomb. He’s never suffers any of the minor irritations in life that I do.  I should just trust his luck and count it as my own, but that’s hard to do on a consistent basis.

I have no luck.  You can be sure if there is any small print involved, it will bite me in the worst way.  If there’s traffic, I’ll be late.  I’m the one that loses my glasses, has wrecks and gets speeding tickets.  I show up for things on the wrong day at the wrong time.  I was sure if I headed off into the desert in spite of the State Departments warning I would become a casualty, but I forgot I was with Bill.

I’m thankful Bill’s luck protects me in all kinds of situations, but I have to admit I also resent it from time to time.  On the trip to Dahab, I thought it would serve Bill right if we were held captive in the desert for ransom.  Intellectually, I realized this would be a really bad thing, but I wasn’t doing reasonable very well that day.  Thankfully I’m usually better at it.  Come back next week when I’m over my pout and find out about the good things at Dahab Paradise.