Perfect

I wake up this morning, and the clock says 10:01, I close my eyes for a second, then it hits me, I start work at 10. Uh oh. I jump out frantically changing into my clothes and get out the door. Call my manager tell her I slept in and I’ll be late. I’m in a frustrated mood since being late is never a good thing but then I’m waiting at a light and a senior sitting in the passenger seat of his car while his wife drives rolls down the window and says to me (after I turn my music down),

Senior (with a minor accent not sure from where, he looked white…err…Caucasian): “Did you modify your car”

Me: “Yea I lowered it and put new wheels on it.”

Senior (With the ok hand gesture out the window): “It’s just perfect. Beautiful.”

Me (with a smile of course): “Thank you sir, appreciated.”

And then we both went our separate ways. This stood out to me for 2 reasons. One, the fact that the gentlemen was not ‘intimidated’ by my loud sorta gangsta rap playing is nice because it shows that not everybody out there stereotypes, and two because, well, it was a compliment. And complementing me on my car is like complementing me on having a beautiful wife. It also turned my frustration into a nice little smile. Thanks old man you made my day!

Onto some serious matters, let’s talk about the drought in Africa. What have you done? I’ve done nothing I’ll admit it. They say that the worst of the drought may not even be over yet. To all my paki (I’m Pakistani I can say ‘paki’ just like black people can say n….) friends out there, remember the flood in Pakistan and how we all went Captain Planet and tried to do everything we could to save the world, well our Paki world. Africa is our world too, let’s get on it, let’s ‘save the world.’ We are all one, we are all united. I see pictures online of children looking malnourished and I turn away. I’m sure you do the same. This is real, when that ad to help out comes on TV let’s look at those images for a minute no matter how hard it might be, because maybe then it will hit us, down to our very core, that we NEED to help these people. I’m fasting because of Ramadan and I’m extremely thirsty and I had some water 6 hours ago, I took a shower that probably lasted way too long, and I let the tap run while I was brushing my teeth (actually I didn’t do this last part but it makes it more dramatic), we need to understand that they don’t have all these luxuries that we take for granted over here. Those of us who are fasting should understand how hard it is without food and water. And those who aren’t fasting just understand that when you’re taking a sip of cold water only to empty the last half of the glass in the sink, there is someone out there that needs it, and it is a life or death situation for them. So do what you can, skip McDonalds, skip Affy’s (local people know), and give that money to an organization that’s trying to help those people. And stare at those pictures of those unfortunate children, let it hit you, let it bring you to tears, don’t try and be macho, try and be caring, and then do something about it.

We are all one. Peace.