I’m not sure what my point is going to be but I’ve just been at the receiving end of two strange turn of events today that I felt compelled to write it out of my system so that it made some sense.
The first event takes place in a supermarket in Dubai. City Center to be exact. It’s going to be yet another solitary walk around the local mall in search of water, toothpaste, moisturizer and the welcome stop at Starbucks. This could be Singapore, Dubai or any other faceless city.
I’m lining up at the checkout behind a restless Russian girl whose attention keeps darting back and forth between this aisle and the next. She keeps pushing back and forth to get a better look then suddenly disappears to the next aisle.
As I place my items on the conveyor I feel a trolley pushing into my back and the shouts of annoyed shoppers as Russian girl and accomplice come charging through the line to reclaim their original position. Such unnecessary stress. She throws my sushi platter and water into the back of the conveyor and shouts something in Russian to the disbelief of onlooking shoppers.
Australian woman 3 down the line pipes up and starts shouting loudly to the effect of “this is not how we do things round here” but Russian woman is unperturbed. If she was, she wouldn’t have done it in the first place.
In my younger years I would have been right in there in the melee. Hell, we’d be exchanging blows right there in the aisle. But, I’ve learned something - that sometimes piping up makes no difference because if manners did make sense, then people like her wouldn’t act like her.
I thought to myself “If this is how you treat people, this is how people’ll treat you”. And, for me, this was enough to know that someday she’d get her payback.
Heading back to the hotel I witnessed event 2.
A crowd gathers round an unfolding scene obscured by a throng of security guards. Judging by the looks of those 3 or 4 deep something major is happening.
Somebody is on the floor surrounded by security. Was it a shoplifter caught red-handed pinned to the ground by the mass of uniformed men? Difficult to tell, too many people.
Then I hear the banshee like wailing of a woman - what could this be? A middle aged European woman screams hysterically as she rushes back and forth in panic around the fallen man.
Indian looking guards look stunned into impotence. One holds the fallen mans legs up in the air. The man is in his 60s and white lying on his back. In desperation the woman beats his chest with a single fist and once again rises to her feat screaming unintelligibly.
There is no heroic doctor bursting through the crowd to administer CPR. With my distant CPR training, perhaps I could do it? But as the conveyor belt takes me further away from the scene I feel increasingly impotent and the crowd slowly envelops the scene.
Inaction takes hold and I feel ashamed. Only 4 days before I was on a flight bound to Heathrow from South Africa when a young girl passed out two rows back. Stewardesses rushed to the scene and eventually adminstered oxygen but not after having a 5 minute pause of inaction.
One stewardess decided the best course of action was to take her to the back of the galley and lay her out there. After minutes of deliberation I decided to step forward and said I’d carry her as few of the crew were strong enough to rise to the task.
The whole plane just sat looking on either in disbelief of denial. “Why wasn’t anybody helping?” I thought.
Back in Dubai, locals rushed excitedly from the corners of the mall to witness what they believe is going to be something worth talking about.
I walk away feeling impotent, I should have done something. That could have been me and I didn’t act because I was too scared and, as is so often the case, I believed somebody else was going to sort it out.
Sometimes it pays to do nothing, other times people will pay for our inaction. I just hope when you grow you are brave enough to act when it counts.
