Madam is back and jet-lagged with a vengeance. She has decided that jet-lag is a lot like PMS: it doesn't actually make anything bad happen, it just makes it seem like everything that happens is bad. And that is not good.
She was only in the Western hemisphere for five weeks, but that was apparently long enough to throw off her groove - her recently acquired, rather shaky Asian groove, that is. So when she stepped off the plane in Singapore after a 36 hour trip she was not really prepared for the incident in the cafe. She ordered drinks and Chelsea buns for her family - a latte for herself, which she left at the table her older children occupied while she quickly checked to make sure she had received plenty of junk in her email box while she was cruising at 900 mph. She was not disappointed.
When she returned to the table her children had just left (presumably to check their own email), a zealous cafe worker was already clearing off the table - coffee and all. Fortunately her husband at the next table was perceptive and realized her coffee was in danger. Knowing what would happen to madam if she were denied her coffee, he snagged the cup before the busboy- girl did.
So, Madam gratefully took the now lukewarm latte, along with her two small daughters, and sat back down at the shiny, clean table. Several Chinese businessmen were getting settled at the next table. Just as Madam sat down with her back to them, a hand reached over her shoulder and grabbed her latte, still with the lid on. Striving for the "I'm-sorry-there-must-be-some-mistake-here" tone of voice, Madam smiled thinly through her headache and said, "But that's my coffee" and took it back, expecting perhaps a mumbled, emabarrassed apology for the rudely executed mistake. She forgot, of course, where she was. The man, who evidently did not speak English, made some comment to his fellows, and reached again for her coffee, putting it back on his table with not so much as a glance at Madam, who was, after all, only a female.
As luck or Providence would have it - or perhaps owing purely to genetics - her husband, who happened to be at least a foot taller than the coffee-snatcher, intervened and retrieved the coffee in dispute a second time. Madam foolishly thought that at this point everyone would have begun apologizing in their native tongues, claiming to be at fault, offering to buy fresh coffee for all concerned, but in this case only muttering and grumbling ensued next door. Her husband's efforts to be magnanimous were not appreciated. Madam did get to keep her latte, but she found she could not enjoy it. Welcome to Singapore.
The rest of the trip was mercifully uneventful, though the airport van driver was unhappy that he could not see out the rearview mirror since Madam's large family had so much luggage. After her month's absence Madam discovered her house had been reclaimed by giant cockroaches, that her cat had somehow acquired a blood parasite while boarding at the vet's and cost 50% more to retrieve than the price she had expected, that her mail was wet and soggy and mildewed after four weeks in a leaky box. Madam forgot about the remote parking meters when she ran into the vet's office to pick up the expensive cat, and came out to find a parking ticket flapping on her windshield while the cat tore at her linen shirt. Welcome to Malaysia.
Madam still had grocery shopping to do since the cupboard was bare except for cockroaches. She wandered through the grocery store in a haze, pushing the cart with a sticky wheel. She wondered, as she always does, what is being said on the loud, monotone recording that always plays in the meat department, chanting the same phrase over and over again. She avoided the aisle with the Durian fruit which smelt like old garbage. She looked in vain for several products which the market often carried, and learned they were out-of-stock, or "finished" as they say here. She was grateful to find a checkout queue with only three people in it and paid for her groceries with pink and blue and peach colored notes.
Madam drove cautiously home, being careful to stay on the left side of the road. She felt unready to resume her parallel life here on the other side of the globe, but she knew that things would look much better in a few days time. All she needed was time, and sleep -lots of sleep.
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