Heat Induced Procastinoia

The illustrious Mr. Murphy was laughing from high above today.

It is known by most who know me even half well that I am one of the world’s finest procrastinators. I can procrastinate like no other, when faced with a decent enough challenge. As of recently, I have been taking online courses to finish a degree I began millennia ago in a galaxy far away. This time I aim to finish, though not today, probably sometime tomorrow…don’t worry, I’ll get to it.
Faced with mounting assignments this week, including a research paper, I did what came most natural: I found every conceivable excuse to not do it until the last day…today. I must admit I tried last night, honestly, but it just didn’t seem right. I, therefore awoke early this morning with the ready to release energy necessary to finish my momentous assignments. But first one must have breakfast, followed by another cup of coffee while talking with another pilot, which is of course followed by the best pre paper mental warm up known to modern man…ping pong. Just one game. Ok, two. Better make it best out of five. Post ping pong exhaustion is best remedied by another cup of coffee while watching a fishing show beamed in over the satellite television, and exchanging trout fishing stories with the Operations manager who has never been trout fishing but can imagine what it’d be like. And then it’s finally time for…oh shit…PANIC.

I made it back to my room and began typing as fast as the words came to my mind. Sometimes this doesn’t work though though because mistakes often I make dog and thoughts sometimes are aardvark random pencil. Yet I had determination on my side this time, and perseverance is a trait I possess when I want to possess it. I was somewhere into my second paragraph when the door rattled with a knock. Thinking it was the local, thieving house cleaning staff (no really, I am down to ½ the clothes I came here with) I shouted over the air conditioner in French that I needed nothing and they could skip the room. A moment passed and then there was another knock. I opened the door and found Mehdi, one of our local staff standing aback from the door in the shade of an overhang smoking a cigarette with a mischievous air about him. He stood staring my way for a moment before quietly, as if on a soft sigh, saying “you must come with me. You must come with me now. We have a…..meeting”. As he finished his last word he began walking off towards an idling car I had never seen in our compound before.

“Hey wait…hold on a second! What is this all about? How long will we be gone?” I shouted after him in stark contrast to the mysterious, sigh like address he had seconds earlier delivered upon me.
“Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes…BP…come, come now” he sighed again, turning slightly.

Annoyed that Mehdi and Mr. Murphy were now ganging up on me, I threw on my sandals, a ball cap and a shirt that did not have salt stains from excessive sweating. Sexy huh? I hopped in the passenger seat of the white, nondescript automobile, next to a silent Algerian who chain smoked and we went rolling off into the desert, on a circuitous and not-so-direct way to downtown Hassi Messaoud. I squinted without my sunglasses, peering off into the sands, making a strange noise I couldn’t repeat again if I tried when we passed a rather bloated camel who lay with eyes wide open and tongue out straight, as if he had been trying to hack one more good lugey at the world before he croaked. I hoped it was Michael (there is only one person who will understand that). It was after a few moments of the awkward, smoky car ride I realized I had no idea where we were, or where we were going. When I inquired, another cigarette was slowly lit and puffed this time with a James Dean demeanor, and Mehdi slid farther across the car, resting against his door, before peering out of his right eye at me. “We are going to BP, for a meeting. But first we need to…uuuhhh…we need to get petrol. That Is why we go this way, do not worry.” Unsatisfied with his answer, and in retaliation to the mounting quasi paranoia I was now beginning to experience, I scanned the desert for functional camels that I might make a daring getaway on if need be. Cmon…there’s gotta be one around here, damnit!!!!

When we hit the outskirts of town again it was in a section of questionable merit. The roads looked as if a war had come and gone in the previous day, and the gas station we stopped at looked as if it had been the main target of the previous day’s war. Mehdi ejected from the driver’s seat and began talking with another man. They both looked at the vehicle, said a few more words, and then disappeared into the fictionally-war ravaged building. A few men in turbans and long beards slowly walked by, staring at me in the car. One walked by again, after throwing something I feared would explode into a trash can. He stared again. I swore I had seen his face on a FBI Most Wanted poster, along with the other 3 guys who had strolled by.

The sudden ridiculousness of the situation began to sink in. I’m not going to a meeting. Well maybe I am, but it’s not with BP damnit, it’s with my MAKER! Screw you Mehdi! Screw you! I scanned the street; no one was anywhere now. I scanned the car and found the only thing that I could make lethal: a Bic pen. I held it tightly in my right hand silently planning my heroic escape if this guy didn’t come back in 3 minutes, keeping in mind that the package just deposited into the trash can would probably ignite the entire block any second, taking out the American and no one else, as they had all been warned and had fled to a safe and pleasurable viewing distance. If the explosion didn’t happen due to a faulty fuse, surely there were men waiting with a black sack to throw over my head. Surely. I eyed my trusty Bic and justly deemed it un-trusty due to the fact it was actually soft from sitting on the dashboard in the heat. “Would’ve survived, but his Bic was flaccid, ma’am” I imagined the men from the State Department telling Elizabeth. “His what????”
I was halfway to giggling over how witty and funny an epitaph it would make when the door flung open. I hadn’t been watching the other side of the car, and someone had snuck upon it. With floppy Bic in hand I turned quickly, ready to attack with lightning speed and leopard like reflexes.

An outstretched hand was nearing me, with the instrument of destruction gripped tightly within its firm, murderous paw. Not knowing what else to do, I lowered my Bic quickly and raised my hand. Meeting half way in the car, I grabbed the cold metal instrument and removed it from the combatant’s hand.
“Thanks for the Coke, Mehdi.” I said embarrassed.
“Ne pas de problem…you’re welcome” he replied, smiling as he got in. “Je suis desole, the pumps aren’t working, so I will get petrol later.”
We drove to the meeting, which turned out to be a ‘meeting’ in the literal sense of the word. I was asked 2 questions over a 2 hour period. I sat wondering when the paranoia that Mr. Bush touts had ensnared me to the point that I had almost given someone ink poisoning. I was ashamed that I had thought the thoughts I had.

In the car ride back Mehdi apologized for his terse, cold attitude earlier, explaining he had been irritated with BP for demanding a meeting at such short notice and for requiring one of the Captains, myself, be included. We began talking about our families and hometowns. He lives not too far away, in an oasis that is renowned throughout North Africa for its amazing dates He promised to pick up some for me next time he went home. He went on to tell me that he has 5 brothers, and 1 sister, and that they ranged from University English professors to architects, to computer software engineers, and that he was trying to raise money to start his own business.

So Mehdi proved to be just like 95% of all the other Algerians I have met so far: intelligent, thoughtful, polite, and motivated. It might surprise some to learn that this country, that is spoken of in such volatile and fear inspiring ways by many in Washington and elsewhere, is mainly inhabited by peaceful people who have built an amazing society, and who, above all else, enjoy the Simpsons. I say Mr. Bush, REMOVE THEM FROM THE ENEMY LIST, THEY LIKE THE SIMPSONS!

On the way back while discussing our families and Fox Network Cartoons, I caught myself still star out at the desert searching for a camel, that just in case, just if need be, just if…I could hop on and make my Hollywood style getaway on with something a little more lethal than a Bic pen for a weapon. Just in case…