My God Complex

The Inshallah Mentality might be what sends me over the edge.

It's all fine and dandy for them to not install my internet for three or four weeks (even though I've paid for those weeks), to be late delivering furniture, to not confirm any kind of plans for a weekend. But my taxi driver last night made me think I'd developed a God complex, and that's not okay!

I heard him talking on the phone saying he was driving from point A to point B, "inshallah." I thought to myself, "It better not be 'inshallah,' it better be that I end up at point B--my house!" As we came into my town, I explained that he needed to go around the round-a-bout, because I lived on the other side of the street. His response?

"Inshallah."

NO! No inshallah! I wanted to scream. Just say, "Okay!" I'm paying you to drive my taxi from here to there, and "If God wills" has nothing to do with it. It's a simple business exchange. If God wills for us to get in an accident, to die, and never end up at point B, then sure...that's His perogative. But we don't need to bet on that every time I give directions. At that point in time I saw it as having very little to do with God, and very much to do with me getting home. Call it a God complex, call it culture shock, call it what you will. But I was fed up with "inshallah." I had to bite my tongue from shouting, "No inshallah!"

And from asking him to turn off his Michael Jackson cassette. If the Inshallah Mentality won't drive me over the edge, 45 minutes in a taxi listening to "Dangerous" will!