Sunday 3 June 2007

having an adventure

I’m actually out having an adventure today, so I’ve posted this previous adventure for you. I shall return on the morrow with details. I will tell you there is a camel and an actual sheikh involved.... must go..

28 November 2006, Fez Morocco, 1223 hours local time
So it’s 2430 hours this morning and I’m sleeping, like you do; when I hear a timid knocking on the door. You know the sort, “Are you there and receiving visitors?” sort of knock. In my somnolent state I’m thinking, “No, go away you fucker, I’m sleeping.” But noooo, the knocking continues.

I get up, open the door just enough to peak my head ‘round, because I sleep au natural – and thus I am. Standing on the other side of my door is the rat-like chap who works on the staff here, the one at the bottom of the command chain as I have noticed. The one my daughter tells me was at the party in the Medina given by one of the other students last week, where he was up on the roof smoking Hashish and pillaging the teenage daughter of the school secretary who is visiting from the U.S.

“The water, the water is on,” he says. Now this chappy is not Moroccan, he is not American, and he is not French. Some say he is Russian. Ha, I have been to Moscow; this sneaky son of an alley cat is not Russian.

“What? What are you talking about?” I asked in my sleep-dazed state. Let us remember I had ver-r-r-r-y little sleep the night before, as the Baby was ill.

He pointed through the cracked door toward the back of the apartment where the rooms for the bath are located. “Hang on, just wait there,” I said closing the door and walking to the end of the bed to retrieve my clothing I had just taken off an hour before.
I turned to the Baby who had been sleeping most of the day in recovery from her night before of yet another (why oh why did the gods of the gene pool not give her my digestive system) episode of food poisoning and said, “Now stay there. Cover up and snuggle down while I see what is going on.”

I returned to the door, and opened it further.

“Alright, what is it? What do you want?”

Again with the pointing. “Do you have the water running?” he asks.

“What are you talking about? I was sleeping,” like I am talking to a brick.

I turned and headed toward the back of the apartment. I got to the end of the bed when my feet started feeling wet. By the time I had reached the bathroom door, I had already bent over to cuff up my trousers away from the water now at my ankles and swamping my little Moroccan red leather shoes.

I opened the bathroom door and from the far corner of the – wall – was spraying forth in an arc, a fountain of water that hit me square in the face. “Oh yea, this was going to be fun.”

You have to get this picture – the Villa is one of the nicest places to live in the New City. We live in “the apartment” which is the most posh accommodation in the Villa. We have two; I say again two, working electrical outlets. You with me?

I have two of the “Moroccan version” of extension cords on a surge protector on the right side of the room which gives power to Q's Apple, the tiny red lamp, my precious and beloved electric kettle, and the re-charger for her phone; with an empty space for the toy iron when I need it. On the left wall I have the surge protector, one “Moroccan extension cord” (24” maximum with three to four outlets mounted on a brick like affair) and my find of the month – a ten-meter actual extension cord (albeit has a funky outlet at the far end). This serves to hook up my phone re-charger, my speakers for my computer, my Dell, and runs under the settee, past the box with the German goodies (another tale), under the armoire, and around the doors to the “back room” that sits between the two –with doors- bath, rooms. That area is my little office. Quite nice really, has a window at the …oops that is not this story.

I have curly red hair, really curly hair, black-women-understand-there-is-a-whole-dimension-to-my-life-that
-is-devoted-to-my-hair-curly –
and I had just blown it out straight two days ago. So the shriek that left my mouth was not so much about the three to four inches of water I was standing in, or the electrical cord just to the back of me floating in the water, or the six pairs of shoes now floating out from where they had been carefully placed under the armoire. No, it was the thought that I would frizz!

I turned to see “rat face” standing behind me and he said, “I thought you were cleaning your apartment.”

I grabbed the little weasel by his collar and lifted him up into the air until his abnormally small feet were kicking in terror, and looked up into his smarmy face and screamed, “You’re telling me you knew the water was gushing in here for the last hour and you did nothing? You think I was cleaning my fucking apartment at one in the morning with all the lights out?” And then I smashed his head up against the wall and watched as his unused brains slid down the wall and into the standing water.

All right I didn’t. But I really wanted to!

“I beg your pardon? You thought I was cleaning in the dark? You mean you knew the water was leaking into the apartment?” I said very quietly and very calmly. Now see, my child who knows me well, at this point hearing my tone, hid her head under the blanket.

“Yes, it is leaking into the apartment on the first level,” he said as though he had just confirmed the certainty of the theory of relativity.

“Go turn the water off,” I said very slowly.

“I will go turn off the water now,” he said as though I had not spoken and he headed for the door. Yes, yes the smashing his head fantasy had returned, but now it had blood gushing from his ears, and loud screaming noises.

Once the water was turned off and the geyser in the wall had ceased to spew forth, I spent the next two hours getting the water out. Now under “good news, bad news, and just the way it is” – Moroccan villas are built on a tilt. I have every confidence there is a proper architectural term, but I know it not. The floors are all stone or marble and at the ‘back’ of any large room that leads to the outside is a – hole. Yep, just like it sounds Sparky, a hole in the floor. Not a drain, not a decorative object, not an ecological device – a hole.

After the maid sloshes the water from her pail, this is on a normal day, not the flood scenario; she uses a device much like a window squeegee but with a mop handle to push the water out said hole.

Uh oh, word count is 1198, and there is still the part with the gorgeous Norwegian with a voice like mink, and Nancy’s reaction to no water, and the plumber with the paper bags.

18 comments:

Krissie said...

If there's still all that, CONTINUE! lol

The Good Woman said...

My my Lady, so this calm, poised persona was just a facade. Love reading about others having violent fantasies. Makes me feel so much more normal!

Omega Mum said...

I loved this but I want to hear about the sheikh. Have high, high expectations.......

lady macleod said...

krissie and Omega Mum

I am returned and writing as fast as I am able.
Thank you for coming by. I have to get caught up on everyone else now.

lady macleod said...

good woman

I am "mostly" calm....
thank you for coming by.

wakeupandsmellthecoffee said...

Ooohh, I'm scared of you and I didn't wake you up in the middle of the night to tell you your apartment is flooded. I'm sure you sorted it though. You must tell the rest of the story.

lady macleod said...

WUASTC

Pashaw, I'm not scarey. A real pushover, well I never killed anyone who wasn't bad...
Thank you for dropping by!

jenny said...

And and???? Don't leave me hanging!! And what's this about a camel and a sheik?? Don't tell me he needed a curly red-haired madwoman added to his harem???

lady macleod said...

jenny

exactly! except for the harem part, I'm British you know.

thank you for coming by.

Anonymous said...

I'm distracted wondering where you plug your computer in and also wondering how you didn't get shocked with that cord in the water

I Beatrice said...

The cord in the water has worried me too! How did you escape? Perhaps there are special angels along with the shortage of plugs in Morocco? There would have to be, it seems to me.

Loved your weasel-man though. And no! he can't possibly have been a Russian. Though I just can't help myself in his connection - an image of Mr Putin will keep cropping up....

Am now awaiting the Sheik story (with or without the h).

I now picture you as Nicole Kidman btw. She too has to straighten her glorious red hair I believe.

Funny that - about curls I mean. My own hair is staight straight straight. And how I used to long for curls! And dimples - I would sit for an hour at a time with my finger pressed in my cheek - just for the fleeting second in which the dimple appeared.

My best friend had curls -AND DIMPLES - you see!

debio said...

I have experienced anger such as you describe and whilst sloshing knee deep in gushing water.
This must be an arab theme.

Can't wait to hear about the Sheikh.

I Beatrice said...

I see your poll reflects a large majority in favour of your blog just as it is - so you can feel entirely vindicated, and know you're getting it just right.

Well done! (And also for your courage in setting up the poll in the first place - I don't think I could look the truth so squarely in the eye as that!)

I Beatrice said...

What is this 'lol' that everyone seems to write, btw? I'm mystified...

jennifer said...

Thanks for visiting me- for a moment there I thought you really had squashed that guy's head...

Liz Hinds said...

More, more! More Norwegian with a voice like mink.

I have day-dreams like that too, of smashing heads against walls. What violence lurks inside the minds of the most peaceable and gentle women

Liz Hinds said...

And of course the frizz. When we stayed in New York for a few days it was humid the whole time, and the whole time I looked a sight with frizzed and fuzzy hair the moment I stepped out of the air-conditioned hotel. It quite ruined the holiday for me!

lady macleod said...

ba doozie

We plug the computers in the extension. fortunately the cord had become disconnected when the rising water pulled it around the leg of the armoire.
thank you for coming by

i beatrice,

LOL means "laughing out loud" dear.
I am not as delicate as Ms. Kidman I don't think, more Rene Russo my daughter says. I do have dimples though.
I'm very big on truth, except when it would hurt someone,unnecessarily. I am glad the poll came out as it did.Oh bloody hell, I left out the "h"? Thank you for spotting that. And thank you for coming by.


debio,

definitely an arab theme!
thank you for coming by.


jennifer

No, no squashing just fantasizing. Thank you for coming by


liz

(sigh) ah yes the Norwegian, I will get back to him.
Hats! hats my darling for the frizz. I have loads.
thank you for coming by.