What Doesn't Kill You...Makes You Crazy!

If ever I needed a vacation, the time was now. Two weeks prior to leaving it had been really stressful as there have been some issues surrounding my housing and I’ve been training the new English teacher that my school hired. The new teacher (Summer) has been great and has adjusted well…it just made my schedule quite busy. The main stresser was whether or not we would have to move. I desperately didn’t want to have to change housing for the 5^th(!!) time. Luckily an arrangement was made that satisfied all parties involved. The two days leading up to my time off were about enough to put me over the edge. I had to attend the opening ceremony at one of my school locations. Which is all fine except that I will no longer be teaching there, the new English teacher is taking over that site. And I traveled 2 hours there and back by train for literally a 5 minute speech that I had to give. We made it there without any issues and I did my little spiel and we finished by noon. Great. Now I had 2 and a half hours to kill before my scheduled train.

 One thing (among so many) that is super annoying about train travel is that if you book in advance online, you cannot make any changes. Someone else had booked this ticket for me and I couldn’t change it to come back to Calicut any sooner. And I have searched multiple times for any building, restaurant or coffee shop in this city that has a place to chill in the AC and have yet to find one. It’s like it doesn’t exist in Kannur! I did find a nicer restaurant to eat lunch at that wasn’t far from the school and it was great food, but still sweating like crazy for hours makes me grumpy. So I headed to the train station around 2 and decided to just wait. The guy I had come with in the morning from my school had gotten a train back at 1:30 and I was irritated that I wasn’t on that same train. So I sit on the platform that I always sit at when I head back to Calicut and a train is there waiting but it doesn’t have the same 5 numbers as my train ticket so I think it must be the next one. Well it was still sitting there at 2:29 and my train was meant to leave at 2:35 so I wonder if maybe just maybe, my ticket is off by one number. The train I needed was 12306 and the train sitting in front of me was 12305. It felt sort of like the power ball…Ok, first number. 1, Got it! Second number 2, Yes! Third number 3, ok, keep going! Fourth number 0, almost there!!! Fifth number 5. Oh man, so close! So I ask the platform attendant guy that has a roster of the trains if maybe this indeed was my train and he barely acknowledges me, doesn’t look at my ticket and says to get on, that this is my train. So I follow instructions and climb the train just as it starts to leave the platform. Not 2 seconds later, he chases me down the track and says, “No, not train. Next one!” He motions me off the train and we are rapidly picking up speed and I’m thinking, “Sheesh man, I’m not Dauntless here!” I don’t jump off moving trains.

So I hastily climb down and try to safely make it off without falling and he assures me over and over again that mine is the next train. I asked him if I need to wait here and he emphatically tells me yes. Well, I’m sure you know what must be coming. Another train never arrived. I sat there until 3:15 and got more irritated with each passing second. I decide something must be wrong so I cross back to the main platform and ask a station master if my train is just really late or what is happening. He looks at my ticket with a smug expression and smirks as he says, “This train gone.” My face went ashen as I explain that there’s no way that can be possible because I’ve been on that platform since 2 o’clock. He says, “That train went from platform 1.” I have an insane amount of difficulty controlling my emotion and he must see my face drop and then very condescendingly says to me, “You..very tired huh?” Never in all my life have I wanted to punch someone in the face more than I have in that moment. I say with tight lips, “I have to get back to Calicut. What do I do now?” He tells me that I have to go and purchase a new train ticket for the one leaving at 3:40, and motions to the line that’s about 20 people long. I am literally shaking with anger at this point and I leave without saying another word to him. I get in line and I’m inwardly swearing for all these people to hurry the **** up! It’s 3:25 at this point and I am not about to miss the next train. I finally make it, shell out another $10 equivalent of rupees and run to platform 3. I get on the train and slowly start to cool down, both physically and emotionally. The other reason I was so ticked off was because I had promised my new friend (Summer) that we would go get pedicures and have dinner to celebrate her birthday and I felt awful that I was so late and we had to cancel part of our plans.

We met at the beach and managed to salvage the day with a few beers and retelling stories of our days. It was a great evening overall because we had a long discussion about our families, our beliefs, our travels and just bonding over learning to cope in Calicut. I thought I was in the clear…but then the frustrations came on strong again the next morning.

I was woken up early (the third day in a row) by someone from the school asking me about Summer’s schedule and I was like “She has a flipping phone! Call her and stop waking me up!” So since I was up, I decided to do laundry and run our water pump since I knew I was leaving the next day and needed to pack. So I go downstairs and start all that, come back and make breakfast and just as I’m about to bite into my toast, I hear and see water dripping down from upstairs. I race down to the side house to shut off the pump and then race up the 4 flights of stairs to check and see what is happening.

The entire fourth floor is flooded and overflowing to the lower levels. I have no idea why and I race back downstairs to see that it’s swiftly flooding my apartment, so I put a bucket under the dripping water and go back upstairs to see if I can figure out what happened. Still can’t tell so I call my landlord who is also my good friend and of course, he has just left Calicut to check on another property in another state and he’s in the middle of nowhere with bad reception. So we could only whatsapp message each other as I tried to explain the problem. At this point, I’m running late for work and call and let them know, arrange for my driver to come late and go back to my apt to mop up the floor. I am sweating bullets when I finish from running up and down and mopping and climb in the shower only to discover to my horror that there’s absolutely no water. I literally start screaming in my bathroom as I am disgusting and need to be at work ASAP!

 Meanwhile Summer is upstairs and didn’t have water damage because her apartment sits further back. She’s ready to leave because she took a shower before the flooding. I tell her that I need to sit under the AC for like 10 minutes and then I’ll get dressed and we can leave. I’m texting Kris (my landlord) explaining about how there’s no water and he wants me to go back up and test the pump and I’m like “Man, I cannot do that. I’ve got to cool down and I’m late for work.” So we agree to do it later when I get home. He wants to try and diagnose the problem before he sends a plumber out. Fine, so I turn on the AC and lay on my bed. As if on cue, 30 seconds later, the power goes off. I am verging on insanity…the screaming ensues once more and I praying and yelling that I can’t do this anymore!!! Five minutes later, it kicks back on, I get dressed and we head to work.  As I text him about the power going out, he kindly says, “You’re a trooper!” and then jokes, “Have you ever considered having your life be a reality TV show?” I text him back, “Countless times my friend.” The problem ended up being a broken pipe and was fixed by the end of the day but never was I more ready to leave on my trip than after those back to back days! Next I’ll write about my amazing time in Bali! J It will be a bit more lighthearted ;)