Murphy's law à la Mhamed

I'm sure most of us know a person who has constant bad luck. Whatever could go wrong, goes even worse. Murphy's law doubled. Mhamed is one of those people. The amount of drama in his life is incredible - also litterally incredible to some extent. "Normal" people have their problems, this week they're sick, next week they have a fight, after two months they have a deadline they cannot meet.. Well, with Mhamed this goes on a daily basis. It has become almost frightening returning home every day, waiting to hear what misfortune has touched Mhamed this time.

Most often Murphy doesn't have anything to do with our misfortunes, it's just our own behavior that leads to a destructive conclusion or it is our own perception of the reality that is off. Here are some examples. Bad luck: Mhamed most likely has bronchitis. Reality: He sits and sleeps in front of an open window but doesn't wear socks, shoes and a warm blouse. Bad luck: Mhamed has walked too much and has sore feet. Reality: He doesn't wear socks in his shoes. He justifies the whining and the complaints by showing his dirty feet, that are dirty only because he walks bare feeted at home. Bad luck: Mhamed has serious problems with his stomach and liver. Reality: He drinks at least a bottle of wine or vodka every evening. The deep fried food doesn't help either. Bad luck: Mhamed's clients don't always pay him. Reality: He works illegally as a translator etc so there are no contracts signed or taxes paid. He has the most dubious clients that don't have any money themselves either. If someone decides not to pay, there's not much to be done.

These are everyday issues here at the apartment. The most interesting misfortune of the week was a specific event. Twice we've had a Polish cleaning lady named Maria at our house (she's not cleaning my room or the bathroom, that's for sure,plus I've never seen her, so I actually don't know if she's an imaginary friend). Anyhow, on Friday she came again. When I returned home, Mhamed was waiting for me, sobbing and drying tears from his eyes. Maria's father had died accidentally in Poland. She had been crying here and Mhamed, being [quote] a humanitarian, felt utterly bad for her. He was panting, crying, making weird noises and kept on saying how Maria needed him and how he needed to go to the funeral in Poland. Me reacting to everything Mhamed says nowdays in disbelief (seriously, how could this too have happened?), closed my door and ignored him the rest of the evening.

On Saturday I was going to catch a flight to Montpellier (return ticket 92e, gotta love Ryanair..), so I had planned to leave home at 7.30. At 6.05 by bedroom door flies open and in comes Mhamed, notably uneasy and a bit out of this world. He opens all doors, turns on all lights, prepares a bath for himself and throws some of the content of his warderobe on the floor. I, half sleeping, inquire what the hell is going on. "Maria needs me!", "I have to go and help Maria!", "I need to go to Poland!". Right.

I pointed out that A) this was not his problem, B) he did not have the money to go to Poland and C) he owed me my one months rent. His response was an illogical story of how he's a humanitarian, how he is like Mother Teresa (he's done that comparison a couple of times already) and how people are more important than money. Then he made several phone calls, also to Maria. Those calls ended quite quick so I'm not all too convinced that Maria was even aware of "how much she needed him". Poor woman, I thought, having her father die and then, on top of everything, having a disturbed person calling at 6 am.

Then Mhamed walked around, talked to himself, made some very weird noises while bathing that resembled those of a horse, made a circus out of choosing clothes and talked to me, perfectly unaware of my attempts to have a few more minutes of rest. Why bother. The entire situation was mainly funny in all its incredibility, so I was somewhat amused, at least until Mhamed couldn't find his socks and decided to look for them in my drawer. That's it, enough. So we got him clothed and ready. By the time I was leaving to the airport, he wanted to lend 20e. When I refused and reminded him about his debt to me, he made it very clear in a non-verbal way that I was no humanitarian.

I was somewhat worried if I could return to my Brussels home on Tuesday evening. Fortunately, Mhamed was home, gloomy. He said he had just returned an hour earlier from Prague (?!?!) where the funeral was held. I have some serious doubts about that he went anywhere in the first place but why he would tell that, I don't know. As I told you earlier, there isn't too much logick about him so this just adds up to the reasons why I'm out of here! I'll be moving on Thursday, again. Mhamed mentioned that briefly just a moment ago, saying that this [quote] beautiful dream will come to an end. At that point I had a hard time keeping my act together. It's been a dream alright!

I do feel a bit bad about telling so negative things about Mhamed. After all, despite all his flaws he stll is a person that wants no harm to me. But, people have been worried about me so it is better that I tell how things lie in stead of keeping people guessing. Also, the situation in all its absurdity is something that only very few come across with, so hopefully this will serve as a Lessons Learned for some.

Take care of yourselves - so will I.