Don't leave home without them

Living in Cairo, I walk quite a bit. I don't have a car, so my options are generally walk, metro, or taxi. I don't mind walking especially now that the weather is cooling off a bit. I walk to work. I walk to church. I walk to friends' houses (within reason). It's nice and it provides me with the only regular form of exercise I've been getting since I've lived here. But when I'm walking around by myself I usually always have my discman with me and my head phones on. This serves multiple purposes. Entertainment for my walk. Mood enhancement for the day. And most importantly, a way to zone out any undesireable scenery (creepy men especially). Today I made the mistake of forgeting my trusty discman.

I was already in an irritated mood because I had to go into work on a Saturday afternoon to do some planning for the week. On top of that I've been frustrated with a few situations at work that are not going as I would like them to. I'm irritated with myself because I try to be agreeable to everyone. So much so that I don't effectively communicate that certain things are just not working for me. So I'm walking to work already irritated when a man in a car pulls off to the side of the road, rolls his window down and asks me if he can help me with anything. Did I look lost? I thought I was walking in a way that said I knew exactly where I was going. Did I look handicapped or hurt? I don't think so. He was just bothering me. So I say no and keep walking. He drives off. Two minutes down the road he pulls up beside me again and offers me a ride. This time I am more forceful and tell him to leave me alone, which was gentle compared to what was going through my head. He leaves and I don't see him again. After that I put up with what I assume normally goes on when I walk down the street, but I never notice it because I'm tuned out. There are comments yelled out from cars, little sounds from men as I pass by, and the like. It was really getting under my skin. I'm almost to the school when a couple of ten year oldish boys decide to start following me. They whistle, they hiss, they yell out any random phrase they know in English and lots of things in Arabic which I was probably better off not understanding. I almost snapped on them. I wanted to turn around and yell at them, but what good would it do. I just kept walking. I finally get to the school only to find that the gate is all locked up and our gate keeper is nowhere to be found. All that for nothing.

Moral of the story: don't leave home without your discman.