Day Twenty-one

Pharmacy politics.

The usual Saturday cast includes Mirjana starring as the pharmacist and Ismat as the assistant. Due to the former being on holiday and the latter still in very poor health, the two of them have been substituted by Freda and Harsha.

Unfortunately those two aren't nearly as chummy as the rest of us, so John made me mediator. I didn't do much mediating, as even those two joined forces against the pilgrims.

Honestly, I tried to be pleasant about WYD. I really did. The atmosphere's great; hearing train-babble of twenty different languages is refreshing; the smiles and laughter are contagious; the spontaneous and vociferous chanting causes only minor headaches; the pushing and shoving by these stupid fucking kids at least didn't result in anyone slipping off the platform ...

I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I felt a bit ashamed of myself, but whatever I say or do, being annoyed is beyond my control. I read mX last night and someone argued that being annoyed at pilgrims who push and shove people on the trains was irrational because it happens even when they're not here. Yeah, except being pushed and shoved by about twenty times as many people than usual kind of gets on my nerves.

Granted, most of them are very pleasant. Nevertheless the sheer number of them have caused enough difficulty walking from point A to point B. Point A being about two metres from point B. I laughed at myself the other day after running across the upper concourse of the train station to avoid being blocked off by a huge group of them about to stomp across my path. It bore too much resemblance to crossing a busy street with no traffic lights.

Today, however, pushed my patience over the limit. Red Mango is two stores down from the pharmacy. To buy coffee I trudged through a current of them heading in exactly the opposite direction. Nobody slowed or allowed me any room. At one point I stood pressed up against the wall to wait for the stampede to pass. Harsha wanted her coffee as hot as possible, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that by the time I made it back to work it was lukewarm.

Apart from that there were the bizaare requests from people who probably had no idea what a pharmacy was.

"Do you have any fog horns?"

"Can I buy a radio from here?"

"I'm looking for a whistle."

I was hugely relieved when the plaza was empty again. We picked up all the stock that they knocked over. There were two cans of deodrant that a couple of boys sprayed all over themselves without buying. I capped them and tried to make them look new.

The Red Mango boy is trying to talk to me now that he knows my name. I don't think smiling and saying hello when I pass the patisserie on my way to work screams "I want you bad", do you? Well Red Mango boy thinks it is. It's now a little embarrassing because whenever the Red Mango girls see me waiting for coffee they'd very conspicuously call him over. I'd very conspicuously grab my mocha and walk away as fast as my legs could carry me.

Under John's mundane orders I attempted to clean our doors. These sliding doors are stored completely out of sight when we're open, so I didn't really see the point of having them squeaky clean, unless John was looking to impress the night security guard, or trick thieves into walking into them.

After all of that I was exhausted. I spent 30 very enjoyable minutes with Jez and then 120 mind-boggling boring minutes with my parents and a friend's family at that one Chinese restaurant we just can't seem to escape.

On the way home I updated them about Jez. They were surprisingly understanding.