Fighting for my right to be "P" OFF!

I know I am lucky, I know I have a good life. I am healthy, I have a great family, enough money to get by, a wonderful hubby, perfect TEEN daughters, a lovely dog, bla, bla, bla. But sometimes I want to have the right to be pissed off with things that happen in my life and upset me.

Today I had this issue with the visa, passport, this FU**ING SH**, and I dared to complain about it.

Some of the replies I got:

- You have nothing to complain. So many people have much worse problems...

I KNOOWWWWW but this is my problem at the moment. And I want the right to suffer for it. And I want the right to complain.

- O dear, it could be so much worse. Imagine if someone gets sick in your family.
Yep. That would be much, much worse. It would be very shitty, but Thank God, no one is sick and the problem I have is this one. About visas, passports and this crap.

- Inaie, just remember you can choose between being angry or being OK.

And am I stupid or something? CAn't you see I already made my choice? I AM ANGRY. I was angry about the current situation and now I am also angry with YOU, Juliana.

- Oh! You are always so spoiled. Only child and all... You never have real complains or real problems.

Sure. I live in a fairy tale. The same one all spoiled, only kids live. And being spoiled and the only child should be enough to guarantee a lifetime of happines, right?

- You complain about bureaucracy...What about me? I don't even have money to travel.

Ok. This is really important. My right to complain DOES NOT take away YOUR right to complain. Go ahead, complain, yell, scream, say some bad words. I may even lend you a shoulder to cry.

What about the ones who want to solve the problems for you? I am not talking about people with sugestions, or helpfull insights. I love those. I am talking about people who can not see all you want it to express your frustration!

Well, when I am annoyed (and annoying), when I am upset, angry, pissed off, all I want is some simphaty. All I need is someone to yell and scream with me. To help me find swear words.

That's all. After that I can let go and move on to solving the problem, as I always do.

Thank you Fabio for understanding my "grieving process"and letting me be. Thank you Francine (brazilian) and Rose, for helping me abuse the perpetrators! I am all ready to get on with life now.

Dubai - am I in ou out?

I got to Bahrain airport quite early, to avoid delays and because I am pretty excited to see friends I have not met in 5 years!

There were no queues. It was my lucky day. I only took a small suitcase, one of those cabin pieces, but I had lots of dangerous goods in it, so it had to be dispatched. After a couple of minutes standing in front of the check in operator, I asked:

- Is there a problem?

- Are you getting your visa on arrival?

- Yes, here is an e mail from Immigration pre approving it. and handed him the paperwork

- hummm... where is your husband?

- working. but in this paper I just gave you, you will see copies of all his documents. His visa, his residency permit, his passport, everything.

he made a call. another call. he stared at the computer and I felt my luck slipping through my fingers.

- wait a moment - he said. and went to a cubicle where the supervisor was.

I managed to wait for a little while, but then followed him.

- Is there a problem?

- You are not boarding. You don't have a visa, and you are not travelling with your husband.

- But if you check this paper in his hand, you will see I got a pre approval from immigration in Dubai.

- They are not going to let you in. Travelling alone, without a visa and with your residence coming up in less than 6 months. Just not going to happen.

I called S. that friend of mine who organized my trip, and sent me that e mail I was trying to show them, but her phone was out of area, then I panicked, and broke into tears. I cried, and cried and cried.

The check in operator took my luggage out of the carrousel and handed it back to me. Along with the letter he refused to read.

I felt humiliated. I cursed and I called Rose, who is also S's friend.. I have no clue how she managed to understand me, because I was unable to articulate any decent word,but she did and she assured me she was going to 'find S for me.

I could not stop sobbing. I called FAbio cried a lot, I almost drove him crazy.

A minute latter S called me, asked to speak with the supervisor (same I had dealt with) who immediately pointed me to a new check in booth - assuring me everything was sorted.

I am not sure what was sorted, but I knew my puffy eyes would take a long while to be back to normal.

S called me back and said it would be possible that I experienced more problems in Dubai, but she gave me a couple of numbers to use, if things were not smooth enough. The airport ground operations manager was one of them.

My stomach jumped and turned all flight. I was a wreck.

I got to Dubai, and before I reached the immigration booths, I was approached by a lady:

- Are you Inaie?

- Yep.

- We called your name in the aircraft and you did not identify yourself. We also called you on the airport's PA system - you also did not come to us.

I could only think. Oh, crap...what the hell now?

- Come with me, I will help you through immigration.

Phew!

She filled my paperwork, went somewhere, got a signature and in a second I was ready to go through immigration. The guy looked at my paperwork and asked:

- Where is your husband?

Oh dear, here we go!
The lady replied on my behalf:

Look at the paperwork, she has a signature from general X... (whoever this guy is)

The man checked the signature, stamped my passport and all I could hear was:

- Welcome to Dubai!!

In less than 10 minutes I was out the airport... S is was my guardian angel!