Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
May 21, 2015

Your boss calls you whatisname.

Nice day and someone dents your fender.

The guy behind the counter is rude for no reason and snatches the sun away.

Your electricity bill is way more than you had thought.

Everyday there is a crisis at home.

All your shopping is criticized. 

You don’t even get kicked upstairs by way of promotion.

You can scratch and win till you are blue in the face but all you get is ‘Thank you, try again.’

Confidential inter-department memos never come to you.

You are the only one on the plane whose interactive flight entertainment TV system does not work.

Your suitcase strap snaps as you are walking to Gate 29 because your plane is never next doors but always at the end of the concourse.

Either that or yours is the only flight that says ‘Delayed’.

You go into a restaurant and get lukewarm coffee and you haven’t the guts to complain.

You make that mobile call from the car and a police cruiser looms into your windscreen.

Your passport expired three weeks ago and you know it now as you stand so foolishly at the Immigration counter saying something stupid like, no, it can’t be.

No one believes you are the Director of the company and they want to see your identity.

Customs always opens your suitcases.

You are leading 10-1 match point in squash and you still don’t win.

You know you’ll never be a winner when....

Your wife always sighs (longingly) when she recalls what might have been.

Everyone else seems to be in the queue that moves and you invariably end up in the one that doesn’t.

You say you are getting old, hahahah and no one denies it or tells you, what nonsense.

You discover your old favourite jeans from 2004 and you know you’ll never get into them again.

You get A Row seats for a show and intend to impress your wife only to find that before you are VVIP, VIP, Special Enclosure, Guests, Rows Al, AZ and AA and your wife says, I have never been so humiliated in my life.

You come home after a hard day at work and yell, “Yoo hoo, 1 am home,’ and the earth doesn’t move.

You know you’ll never be a winner when.....

Your nice white shirt is des-troy-ed by a leaky ballpoint in the pocket just as you enter a crucial corporate meeting and everyone thinks, what a klutz.

No one ever wants to read your CV.

The newspapers don’t even publish your letter to the editor praising the paper.

You plan a corporate policy strategy and slave over it only to discover the boss either gets flu or leaves for Europe on the day of your presentation.

You get stuck with the bill in an expensive restaurant  and you don’t know how it happened.

You fight with your wife, be a tiger and slam the door as you huff off in justified rage only to discover you have left your car keys behind… and will now sheepishly have to slink back for them ruining a great exit.

Your office has no windows… it hasn’t had windows for sixteen years.

All your promotions are lateral.

You get letters of recommendation while others get salary hikes.

No one notices you were away on leave for two months. You don’t even get obscene phone calls. Nor do you get junk mail.

Your computer has more viruses than a hospital.

You buy a second hand car and it turns out to be a lemon.

You actually believe telesales people when they tell you their computer has selected you for their special offer.

You become a member of some restaurant because you are too nervous to say ‘no’ to the lady who calls.

You know you will never be a winner when....

You get on an extra special medically proven diet plan and gain two kilos.

(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)