Melanie’s Melbourne Moment
Here is a run down of my adventures in Melbourne, and I’m sure
there must be others who can relate to my story as I refuse to believe
that I could possibly be the only person who
still has mobile phone dramas, has a teenage son who is totally
unawakable and has an exam and needs to get up and catch a
bus to get to his exam, has serious electrical problems at home, walks into very clean
glass doors, totally spills coffee all over pastel coloured suit
5 minutes into a boardroom meeting, walks into male toilet and
unintentionally trips up someone who has just had a knee
replacement whilst trying to be helpful and consequently gets crushed
among other things;…..okay maybe not necessarily all in
one morning, but surely others are unlucky too.
Here goes:
First I get into taxi 2 hours ahead of time, taking peak traffic into
consideration still in Perth time mode, I nod off briefly.
Suddenly I awake frantic as I remember that my son has an exam and I
promised to ring him to wake him as his father believed
that he should be old enough to wake up by himself exam or not. I try to
use my phone and it’s not working….. what the….!
“Hey do phones not usually have reception around here,” I ask the taxi driver as my
stress levels are starting to rise. “Mine’s got full
reception,” he announces in a real show offy way. I’m starting to hit my
phone harder and harder, in total bewilderment as it
was working fine last night. Surely Optus wasn’t being tempermental and
decided to redisconnect my phone AGAIN for no
apparent reason, (another problem I have as my son trying to be environmentally conscious decided to cancel paper bills and get them emailed to him, only he never tells me when they are due, but that’s another story. I’m starting to get really aggressive with my phone,
making lots of huffy and puffy noises, breaking out in a
sweat and the taxi windows are starting to fog up from the steam coming
out of my ears. I’m slowly, well actually extremely
rapidly starting to lose it in the back and so the taxi driver was
feeling sorry for me and hands me his phone. “why that is so
kind of you, I won’t make a call, I’ll just msm my sister to phone me
and I’ll fill her in and she can make the calls.” So I msm
“Please call me ASAP” and hand phone back and wait, not exactly
patiently and wait and wait!!. Getting frustrated and
struggling to sit still he hands me his phone again. I suddenly realise,
I forget to say it’s Manal using taxi drivers phone and
resend message. Still no bloody reply. By this time the taxi driver is
getting especially clever at reading my smoke signals and
hands his phone to me again, “Just phone no more messages,” “Alright
already”, I just didn’t want to use up all of his credit. So
I dial Ihsan’s mobile and of course the damn thing is flat. As a result
of the cat chewing Reyhans charger, her phone is
charging on communal charger in kitchen and she was my only reliable
hope. So I dial house phone which unfortunately is in
kitchen, and naturally Ihsan’s bedroom door would be closed. The phone
switches to message bank and so I scream at the
absolute top of my lungs, “Ihsan!!! This is mum WAKE UP!!!” The taxi
driver not expecting that I was able to reach such high
notes I’m sure jumps out of his skin and we nearly crash into car in
front of us. I try repeating the process several times
without success. “Um isn’t there someone else you can call?” the kind
taxi driver mentions in a softly spoken voice. So I try my
sister who also doesn’t wake up. This is ridiculous. So I go back to
trying home phone. Finally we reach destination and boy
does the taxi driver look relieved. I tip him pretty heavily in
appreciation of him letting me use his phone and trudge into
building where my meeting is to happen, luckily quite early. I get
really excited when I see my collegue Michael from Perth
and he seems confused by my excitement then I ask if I can borrow his
phone and it’s back to screaming out a now almost
abusive wake up call again at the top of my lungs in my loudest most
highest pitched tone. Just when my voice has turned
hoarse and I can barely speak, Reyhan picks up phone and lets me know
that my son has actually stumbled out of bed.
However he does need something urgently and where could it be. I
explain that it is in the front room, but unfortunately there
is no lighting and it is not going to be easy to find it in the dark,
and please tell Ihsan not to stand on my very organised piles
of paperwork also take care not to trip or walk into furniture or other
obstacles. And could Reyhan please contact OPTUS and
find out what is wrong with my phone. Mission accomplished, I am
exhausted and now really need a coffee, Michael is amused
and we head off to coffee shop. Still dizzy from stressful start to
day, it’s totally not my fault and a credit to very efficient
window cleaners as I crash into very clean and clear glass door and
literally bounce off and into Michael and we both almost
fall completely hard into passer bys. Michael mentions that if I really
liked him I didn’t need to come across so forcefully. I
struggle to respond to his joke as my head hurts and I’m worried that I
might be suffering concussion. We collect our coffees
and head back to boardroom just in time for meeting. It’s all very
serious and Michael bursts out in a fit of laughter as my
coffee appears to have wrong sized lid on it and it has silently dripped
huge blobs all over my suit. He
whispers to me that I probably should take off my jacket as
it would look more professional. Uh oh! You’d think I would have learnt
my lesson by now and realised that I should always be
prepared just in case I have to remove my jacket/jumper and once again was going braless,so I
pretend I’m too cold and he offers me his suit jacket. At
morning tea time I accidently walk into male toilets, while occupied but
it’s okay I’m a health professional and also not my fault
as the male and female picture don’t look that different. When I return
I notice that a member who has just had a knee
replacement’s walking stick has fallen onto the floor and so I pick it
up and lean it against the table so it will be easy for him to
retrieve rather than have to bend down and pick it up from the floor,
but unfortunately must have trouble with his eyesight
also as he doesn’t notice it’s been picked up and trips over it and
falls literally on top of me like a dead weight. Shivers that’s
the gratitude I get for trying to be helpful….Rest of meeting is
pretty uneventful until taxi trip home, but that’s another
story……
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