Toilet Lady
Sun 12 Apr, 2009, 23:48 pm
There's one thing I really can't abide with, and that's bad manners. It just really gets up my shirt and sticks in my craw.
Unfortunately Toilet Lady at Giza pyramids was unaware of this fact else I'm sure she wouldn't have been as rude as she was. I walked into the loo with a couple of other foreign ladies - had only just stepped in through the door when she said "Money!" and pointed to her basket full of Euros and Dollars. I will concede the fact that she may not have had much English, but you will have to allow that since there was no sign demanding payment that her basket was therefore filled with 'tips' which are normally handed over after the task is completed and good service has been rendered. Since I'd just stepped through the door I failed to see what service she could have rendered in such a short period of time.
My female companions, bless them, were bullied into putting money into the pot, I just kept moving towards the loo thinking I'd sort this one out when I came out - Toilet Lady stood her ground and kept demanding "Money!", she obviously thought I was not a native English speaker. I told her, in Arabic that what she was doing was not polite and that after I had been to the toilet I would think about money.
So I went to my loo, cleaned my own seat that was covered with water from tissues out of my own bag since there was no toilet roll in there, the toilet hadn't been flushed since the last use and I had to use my own tissues as toilet paper - so needless to say, not amused in the slightest for demands for money by now.
I came out washed my hands, put my 1 LE into her basket which by now had had the ever so prominent dollar and euro notes hidden and carried on berating her for the state of my toilet and the cheek to demand money without the absence of an official charge, and blow me if she didn't burst into tears!
I had made toilet lady cry! She sobbed and she bawled and said how upset she was that someone as young as her daughter would call her impolite. Obviously she didn't think the cap fitted quite the way I did. I think she may just have been in shock that a foreigner had given her a gobfull in her own language.
"Maa'lesh" I told her and patted her on her shoulder. Damn me if I wasn't feeling guilty now for making toilet lady cry! She really was good! Wish I could squirm my way out of a situation as well as she did.
