Not a problem

Traffic here is crazy—I think I’ve talked about it before—but somehow I’ve managed to steer clear (haha, no pun intended) of getting hit by rogue vehicles the entire time we’ve lived here.

Until Thursday evening, that is.

I’ve had many close calls but have never actually been hit. I tend to be a bit more cautious than Andrew is when leaping into traffic because I usually have a child or two somewhere on my person. That was still the case on Thursday evening.

We were walking to the Palmer’s and I had Miriam strapped to my front. I was pushing the jogging stroller which was loaded up with a basket of toys. Andrew was carrying Rachel, lucky for her. Josie was behind them.

A car was parked on the side of the road. It was turned off and nobody was inside it. Clearly it was safe to pass behind it. Or so I thought, but I was wrong because a man walked past us, hopped in the car, revved the engine, threw it in reverse, and hit the stroller…et moi.

I slammed my fist down on his car as hard as I could. Andrew did the same. The driver stopped and looked innocently at Andrew. He didn’t move forward at all, instead I had to drag the stroller a few inches away from the car so that I could upright it. And when Andrew started yelling at the guy all we got from him was a giggle.

Yes, the guy laughed at us.

Then he shrugged and said, “Sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t going to cut it!” Andrew yelled, “You just hit my wife and baby!”

“Sorry,” he giggled again.

“Why are you laughing!? You didn’t even try to stop! You weren’t even in the car! You saw us! What’s your problem?!”

A man walked up to help smooth things over.

“It is no problem,” he told Andrew, “Don’t worry.”

Yeah, it wasn’t a problem because he stopped…not after hitting me but after we started beating his car. Whatever motivates you, though, right?

I’m so sick of being told what’s a problem and what’s not a problem.

That’s what our landlord told us when he informed us he wasn’t going to give us back our damage deposit for no good reason. It wasn’t a problem.

Not a problem for who?

Stealing 3500 LE? That sounds like a problem to me.

Hitting a mother with her baby? Also a problem.

We’ve had a rash of bad Egypt days lately, which is a shame since we’ll be leaving soon. You’d think Egypt would be nice to us…