Don’t read this if you are not a current or former professional journalist … and a writer/reporter, in particular. You will be bored. Too “inside baseball.” Too much about the logistics of the business. The sort of thing that reporters sit around and talk about late at night with “I can top that!” discussions their most memorable nightmare situations about getting in and getting out and having the ability to access power and phones and the internet …

I already have decided that nine of my Worst 10 Logistical Situations, All-Time … have occurred in my two years in the UAE. I probably exaggerate, but not by much …

As I recount for you the latest mess, I have fetched a giant map of the city of Dubai, and with that spread out on a big table and my un-fond memories, I’m ready to roll on The Al Wasl-Sharjah Soccer On Deadline Near-Disaster …

So, Wasl is the club in Dubai that signed Diego Maradona as their coach, and this was their first game in the Pro League season. A fairly big moment, worth a column as well as a game story. From their stadium south of downtown Dubai.

The word “Dubai” already has a dark connotation, in my head, and I’m sure my respiration and pulse spike when someone says, “So, you’re going to file from Dubai?”

Well, yes. Yes, I am. Inshallah.

So, as always, I checked with the media guy, at Wasl, a guy who works for an actual PR firm and so far has been known for his competence. He assured me that, yes, Wasl would have wifi available at the stadium for journalists. Yeah. Sure. This isn’t so much something that I will now expect, as it is a factoid I can throw back at the club and the PR company when there is, in fact, no wifi. My expectations are that low.

So, rent a car, load up some supplies, head for Dubai.

A couple of problems right off.

1. I have forgotten my map of Dubai. Mitigating circumstances: I have already been to where I’m going at least three times, and probably four. I think I know how to get there. And, second, it’s really tricky to consult a map while doing 70 mph in a rental car on a road that does not allow for easy exits and entrances, and where people have no problem driving on the shoulder you might otherwise be tempted to park on, while consulting a map.

2. The game starts at 9 p.m. It will last about two hours, and then I have to file at, oh, about 11:20. That’s bang-bang, even with the special late deadline.

3. And another thing … I’m writing a column, which is always, always tough to do on deadline. Even assuming everything else is working OK. Which it won’t.

So, driving north on Sheikh Zayed Road, the freeway between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and I hit Sunday night (Monday night, U.S. equivalent) traffic, and it’s awful. We creep along in a five-lane mass of metal, for 20 minutes or so before we pass the wreck that has been moved. (I know because of the shattered glass on the pavement.) Good thing I’ve left so early, yes? Three full hours before kickoff to cover about 100 miles.

(Oh, and I stopped by the office to pick up the “dongle” … in case I have trouble with the wifi … even though I’ve never actually used the dongle, and the guy who had it last said it didn’t work for him. But you can never have too many technological options that probably won’t work.)

So, fighting through traffic, and I realize that in those rare moments when I can speed up that the low-end strippy Chevrolet Aveo I am in … makes a horrible noise any time I get past 12o kph (about 72 mph). It sounds like the brakes are bad, or a wheel is about to fall off. Not that a wheel falling off while I’m on a crowded freeway, sandwiched in a tiny car between Pakistanis bus drivers and speeding Emiratis and Westerners in monster SUVs makes me nervous, or anything.

I get to Dubai, and it’s dark. This is already going to be worse. It’s also a sort of thick darkness. Fog, bad air, etc. Thing is, I can’t see into the distance to look for landmarks. Too dark. Not that it will matter … but of course it does and will.

I reach the World Trade Center, which is where I am to get off the freeway, and I get that right. Good. OK. I still will be 90 minutes early for kickoff. Then comes the giant roundabout at the bottom of the off ramp. Six choices. Hmm. I’ve had trouble here in the past.

It’s the second choice off the roundabout, right? Pretty sure, here I go … no, that’s not it. Crap. I have chosen the road that leads me to some random palace near Dubai Creek. I do the first U turn, after a couple of miles, come back to the giant roundabout, wait five minutes for my turn (street lights, on a roundabout) … and after I go under the freeway, I take the next exit … and now I am going somewhere quite wrong.

After about 2-3 minutes at 65 mph, I realize that I have gotten back ON the freeway from Abu Dhabi and am, in fact, heading back towards Abu Dhabi. The opposite way I need to go to get to the Wasl stadium,

(Reminding me of the UAE commuter joke: Q: “How do you get from Dubai to Abu Dhabi?” A: “Go to Sharjah and turn around.” The joke being that Sharjah is in the entirely wrong direction, but the implication being that you have to go 5-10 miles out of your way just to have the chance to turn around and go where you want. That’s the road sitcho in Dubai.)

I know I need to get off the freeway and somehow get to the other side … but this will not be good. I could end up anywhere, and I don’t have the map, remember? Not that you ever get a chance to stop and look at it …

So, a sign for Jumeira, the posh beachside neighborhood. If I get off here, pull a U, get under or over the freeway, I might actually have a shot at getting back on the freeway, headed towards Sharjah …

Let me stop for a moment and remind you about Dubai. It’s basically a stretch of skyscrapers on either side of a 12-lane freeway. The city is not on a grid. It doesn’t have neighborhoods and almost zero straight roads — even though it’s in the desert. No one walks anywhere because these skysrapers aren’t connected by sidewalks or paths. Nothing. The city is about 1,000 separate islands of people-in-huge-buildings.

Abu Dhabi is gridded and easy to figure out. Dubai is not gridded, and it is a driver’s dystopia of flying overpasses, narrow underpasses, and thousands of exits taking you to weird places you’ve never heard of … and once you make a choice you are going to be turned around in about 30 seconds, and at night you can’t even tell what direction is north. M.C. Escher may have been the primary planner of this urban nightmare. Even people who live in Dubai don’t know how to get anywhere except their apartment tower and the nearest grocery store. It is that bad, and now I am in it.

So, I’m heading for Jumeira beach, and I need to pull a U … but the first light I come to won’t let me turn left. But it will let me make a right, which means I am now running parallel to the freeway (in theory), heading the right way, but to try to get to Wasl stadium via surface streets is an utter non-starter.

Pull a U. Back to the street light. Hang a left. Heading back towards the freeway, in theory … I am offered about six chances to take various roads to various unknown locations, but I manage to pick out the right option, which is no small feat … and I am back on the freeway heading the right direction!

Now, the same exit, the same roundabout, and it’s the first exit I want. Got it. Now, I’m on this road that has a speed bump, and then it goes under some other road. Yes, this is it. Just don’t go towards Al Ain. Do not go towards Al Ain. Take the exit after …

OK. Got it. Now I have to make sure I don’t stay in the right lane, because that lane peels off to the right and deeper into the desert. No. No. People are speeding, I have to get over to the left … yes, this is it. There is the stadium and it’s still nearly an hour before kickoff.

I get to the stands, but not before they have confiscated my bottle of 7-Up. As if.

And, of course, we have no internet service in the media tribune. Oh, and exactly one electrical outlet for 10 guys. And no lineup sheets. They gave those out just before I arrived, and they now have run out. The PR guy helpfully suggests I write down the lineups by hand, using another guy’s list. Thanks. I guess it’s too much for a professional outfit to run off another 20 of them because I’m not the only person with no lineup.

A bit before kickoff, a guy comes along making sure the wifi is working. About six guys simulatenously shout “No! Nothing!” It will be fixed momentarily. (No, it won’t.)

So, PR guy comes back. They’ve got a problem but they’re working on it. One of the country’s two big phone companies has had issues all day. Is this due to that? Maybe. Probably not.

It’s appallingly hot and sticky. We are sweating as we sit. Someone comes through with tiny bottles of faux juice, and a bit of water. We take both. I am sitting in a little chair with a working surface to the right, like you see in grade schools. (Good luck if you’re left-handed.) No actual press table. Why would we need or want that?

Game begins. I have already pulled out the dongle (supply own joke), and I’m getting nothing from that, either. Might be me. Probably isn’t.

I start writing. Just random stuff on Maradona’s complaints about his roster. I mean, you have to start if you’ve got 750 words to file.

Halftime. Still no wifi. I go up to the press box, meant for technicians and announcers, not actually for press, and my colleague on The National is on his hands and knees under the table, trying to get a cable hookup for his machine, somehow. “It’s this or nothing,” he says. I tell him, I’m leaving. I have to get out to file — even if it means driving all the way back to Abu Dhabi. It’s 9:45, and I can just make it if I leave now. To wait any longer could be a disaster. A worse disaster.

On the way out, I see the PR guy sitting in the stands. “The wifi?” “Doesn’t look good,” he concedes. No, it doesn’t. I’m shocked.

Rush out of the stadium. Call home to ask Leah to watch the second half, so she can give me the highlights, if something weird happens, and I really hope it doesn’t. Wasl is up 1-0, and  a 1-0 final works OK for me.

Out to the car, swing onto the road, look for the exit on the right that puts me back on the main freeway (which is bending south here) … and I miss it. I’m on the wrong thing. And I have no idea what wrong thing it might be. It’s taking me to Business Bay and Umm Something, and which way is the right one? No idea.

I am, yes, shouting obscenities at this point. I am going to lose another chunk of time, and I will be late to file, and they will have to plug all of page 2, and it’s a disaster. I am looking for any road promising “Abu Dhabi”  and eventually I just exit. Still looking for any sign.

And there is the Intercontinental Hotel. I’ve been in there before. They will have wifi! May have to pay some steep rate, but at this point …

I park underground, take the elevator up, cross to the lobby, encounter some generic Helper Guy in the lobby, and he tells me that wifi is free, in the lobby. I sit down on a weird, round couch (still no power, but I can last another half hour) … and, I’ll be! I can get online.

I do a word count for what I have written, and I’m already at 650. Just 100 words to go. Looking for an ending. I get updates from Leah on scoring. “Number 19 just scored in the 54th minute … Number 19 scored again … OK, it’s over.”

I don’t like the column at all. It’s herky-jerky, as they often are on deadline, but it’s not like I can fiddle with it. At 11:02 I file. Semi-early. I hate the piece so much I won’t even link to it here … but I’m done.  Running into the Intercontinental, a completely random event, was a lifesaver, professionally. After all the bad breaks and delays, I caught a good break. Exhale.

Now all I have to do is get back.

This is where I could use my map, the one I’m looking at now but didn’t have then. I remember taking a road away from the hotel which ended in a mall parking lot, but taking an exit from the mall that somehow got me to the freeway, and I think I’m doing that again as I follow a cab leaving the Intercon (must be going to the freeway, right?) … but he’s not and I’m lost again. Just driving. Going in circles, probably. Time passes. Maybe I’ll end up in Oman. I exit something somewhere. Looking for “Abu Dhabi” … the road whimpers to an end in front of a gated community. It’s pitch dark. I just want out. 

The shouted obscenities resume.

More driving. More going nowhere. Eventually, a sign! “Abu Dhabi, Jebel Ali” … Yes!

I get on some sort of road … maybe it’s taking me to the main road. Eventually.

Well, very eventually. I have gotten on the 44 highway, which runs roughly parallel to the main road, which is more or less good, but is studded with speed bumps and roundabouts. Yes. A freeway with speed bumps and roundabouts. So I’m crawling, and most of the other traffic is semi-trailers and trucks … and it’s dark and dangerous.

The 44 eventually becomes the 311 (Emirates Road), and very eventually it takes me back to the main road, and I’ve lost no more than, oh, 45 minutes of my life driving aimlessly around the back roads of Dubai.

Another hour to get back … and a 90-minute game has turned into a seven-hour ordeal in which I got lost no less than three times, had to file a bad column from a hotel lobby, having missed the second half of the match, and I am angry and wrung out. Again.

I hate Dubai. I hate it hate it hate it. None of their stadiums are of a professional quality, and I am not going back (I vow) if I have to file on deadline. Not doing it. No. Never. And I thought almost getting locked into Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium during a snow storm, four hours after a Rams game 30 years ago was bad …