ILLIUSIONS

Last night I was told to take the children out to have fun. We were handed money and basically kicked out of the house. I only knew of two places in AD: AD Mall and the most ghetto Carrefour I’ve ever seen. Neither was my idea of fun, the children all agreed. There is a place down the block and across the highway, it calls itself a mall. Raha Mall. We went there in hopes of finding something interesting to do. The only gaming area was something that looked for toddlers and the bloody fools had the nerve to be charging 35 per kid. Wanna know the scary part about that? PPL were ACTUALLY in THERE! That’s AD for you.

So after not finding anything in Raha Mall I said fine we’ll go to Carrefour and buy toys. They were reluctant about that. Halfway there we took a vote, “Go to Carrefour and buy toys.” or “Hold out and drive around in hopes of finding someplace fun.” They liked the latter, so at 8:40pm we were joy riding the dead streets of AD (Not to get me wrong.. there were cars out there but they all drive as if they just don’t have enough energy or desire to move faster than a crawl.) We drove down loads of unfamiliar streets. We found Emirates Computers, the Harley Davidson store, loads of Baskin Robbins (almost on every corner, I’ll assume these folks are really into their ice cream.). Some how we found ourselves in front of AD Mall despite the fact that we weren’t trying to get there. We were going to just go in but it was Friday night and the place looked like it was most likely horribly packed. Finally we decided to give up and just go buy donuts from the ghetto Carrefour that had a small Dunkin Donuts inside. I decided to try going back the twisted way we came but got a little lost when I took a few wrong turns and missed a couple after not being in the correct turn lane. I saw the road that we needed to be on to get to Carrefour but had to pass it to go down further since I couldn’t make the left turn onto it (I was in the far right lane). I drove down the block to the next light and noticed there was quite a bit of cars and people congregating in the vicinity of a pretty huge building. I couldn’t see the sign but it looked a lot like it could be a mall. There were yelps of joy from the children when we found out it was Wahda Mall. Not that they really cared so much that it was Wahda per se but the fact that it was another mall and not AD Mall. As glorious as it looked I could only assume it was just as packed as AD mall was. So I told them we’d get up early today and get around 10am. They liked that idea, so we went on to Dunkins, brought donuts (or munchkins as some preferred – myself being one of those ;) ) and went home.

This morning as promised, I packed them into the car and we went off to explore the glorious discovery of last night. I have to admit I was surprised at its greatness. I think I really love that mall. The children agree. They had a really nice time in the gaming area – which was basically empty at that hour of the morning. They rode, laughed, swung and played. They all looked really happy. Seeing them having so much fun was fun in itself. Their happiness was complete when after we finished in the gaming area I took them for lunch in the food court. They happily ate Mc Nuggets (they are crazy for chicken nuggets and popcorn.) and when they were done I got them ice cream. Ha-ppineeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssss. They opened their happy meal toys in the car on the ride back home. There was lots of giggling and singing. One of them spoke up and said it was the most fun they could remember having in a very long time cuz the father only takes them to buy toys once in a while in that ghetto Carrefour, and if he does happen to take them to a gaming place they just play and leave. That was kinda funny, considering I knew exactly how that was, the father was no different when I was a kid. The most he’ll do in the line of fast food is get a take-away pizza from some random no name shami restaurant or get shawarmas (chicken sandwich). It’s the sad truth but anywayz least I know what I’ll do with myself the next time I find myself dying of boredom.

On a completely different note, I wonder what it means when one dreams about their math professor. I dreamt about her last night. I was in an elevator (it was like a residential building, I guess maybe we lived there or something) and some one gets on. Before she even turned around I knew who it was. I was feeling squirm-ish having to face her after my horrible performance last semester. She’s really a sweet lady despite the way most talk about her. She smiled and for a second I thought “Well great, maybe she doesn’t recognize me…” She then told me to work hard, do better next time around and not to give up. For the rest of the elevator ride she remained smiling. The elevator stopped on a floor and a guy with 2 young kids got on. He turned out to be her husband and the kids were her son and daughter. (even though that was kinda strange cuz I met her daughter, who studies in UoS with me and I didn’t think she had any other kids.. then again I never asked so I guess anything is possible.)