Monday, October 19, 2009

Just Normal...

Hi,
My name is Mohamed, my friends in Europe call me John but you can call me Chang. Don't raise your eye brows! You don't know me? I am you neighbour living just around the corner, 3000 Km away.
Not yet? Let me try to describe myself a little then. I am average height and weight with no peculiar facial or ethnic traits. This doesn't really help, I see. Well ok, I am a member of the biggest group in the world. Governments call us the Public (hence public transport, public toilets, public beaches and so on..), politicians call us the Silent Majority while movie stars and sports celebrities call us the Fans.

It is true that I am not famous or anything. However, I get me share of the news . The only difference between our group and the captains of business and politics is that while they are referred to by name, we are referred to by numbers or statistics:
- An estimated number of 2000 people died in the El Salam Ferry sinking.
- The rate of unemployment has risen by 2% during the second quarter of 2009.
- 34 killed and 106 injured in 3 bombings in Iraq
- 70% of the married male population in Europe cheated on their wives at one point, at least, during their marriage.

We don't design bridges. We build them. We do not plan wars or revolutions. We just fight them. We don't play sports. We just fill the stadiums and watch the live broadcast burdened with silly advertisement.
The consumers, the customers, the masses and the corner stone of modern civilisation. Actually, during the last economic crisis they also gave us credit. All of our financial, problems and worries; all of the measures we took to go on living through the turbulence were deduced to: The Consumers' Confidence Index.


I never complain and I never tire. I just go through life one day at a time. Whether it is in the hunger-stricken plains of Ethiopia or the warm wooden houses in Sweden, it is still me. One conviction, I always have: "God loves normal people. That is why he created so many of them."

Picture Frame..

I was never really a fan of Birthdays. Not trying to be cynical or anything. It is just not my thing. In my opinion, it is just a cheesy way to gather people somewhere (in the good old days birthdays were normally held in homes, but not anymore) and embarrass them to get you gifts.
Even more, one gets invited to too many birthdays. This leaves you in perpetual confusion.
"So, who's birthday is it exactly on Friday?"
"Omar?? Omar who? Oh Rania's Fiancée..!!"
"Remind me again... Who's Rania exactly??"
And it just goes on and on.. and on.
For the sake of argument let us do the math. You have 15 family member (including kids) and 15 friends. Each of your friend on the average have a wife and a kid. By simple math this adds up to a minimum of 60 people. If only two thirds of them decide to celebrate their Birthdays you will end up with 40 Birthdays. That is more than 1 birthday every 10 days (and I am being very conservative with numbers.)

Then comes the issue of the birthday present. Get an expensive present then you are trying to show off. Get a simple present and you are cheap. Or get a gift voucher and then you are plainly lame.
Some people obviously found the ideal solution for this dilemma during my last birthday (for the record: I did not have a birthday party) However, these certain individuals decided to be nice to me anyway. So, I ended up getting 10 very similar gifts. I think by now you all have guessed it.... Right, Picture Frames.
This made me think a little. When someone gets you a picture frame, what is the message this conveys?
We do not know you that well
We had to get you a gift (God knows why..)
We do not really care whether or not you will actually use this present (a remote possibility in the age of digital photography)

However, after my initial mild frustration from getting 10 picture frames for my "special" day. It suddenly hit me. This is the perfect and most brilliant present anyone could get.
For the coming 10 birthdays, I will absolutely need not worry about what to buy as a present. Just give one of the frames. It does not matter if it's a boy or a girl, young or old. A frame would just do it. Especially, if you sneak in and just throw it in the middle of the other gifts without a card or anything that reveals your identity.
Then you'll go home and just imagine the Birthday boy/girl
"Who the hell brought me this Picture Frame??"

We koll sana wento taybeen...

Monday, August 24, 2009

The Kings's Illness

Another interesting mail that I got from a distant acquaintance:

During the time of the Pharaohs Old Kingdom, it is said that King Khufu fell the victim of a grave illness.
His condition prevented him from eating, sleeping or entertaining his endless reserve of Harem. After lengthy consultations, the wise men of the Kingdom finally figured it out. The king had a disease exclusive to majesties. He was simply, but drastically, bored.
Hard working, low earning people do not have the luxury of getting bored.

Anyway, this is not what my letter is about. My family is facing a very strange and peculiar problem: My wife is the most impatient and easy-to-get-bored person on earth. This is not an exaggeration, she is.
We always eat our meals in room temperature as she cannot wait till late noon to cook. Also, she cannot wait the 2 minutes the microwave needs to heat. My white shirts gained a more or less yellowish colors. "It is such a waste of time to wait for the entire very long cycle to wash the Whites.." She sais.
Our vacations cannot be longer than 3 to 4 days and we go out of any movie after one and half hours whether it is finished or not.
We (more or less), as a family, adapted to this relentless half-cooked lifestyle. However, as a famous philosopher once noted: Since patience, in any case, cannot be depicted every moment in life can then become heavy and tedious. Six or seven months ago, my wife exhausted the last remaining tiny bits of her patience.

So this is what we are left with: Boredom... and a great deal of it too.

My wife is bored. She is bored from me, our kids, our home and the whole damn lot.
We go on a vacation, she cries on the airplane that she wants to get back. We go to a restaurant, the food is 10 minutes late and she insists to leave. Our home is permanent State of Emergency . Kids are severely punished for almost nothing and the squabbles with the cook, the cleaner and the doorman do not seem to end.
To make things worse, her mechanism to fight it all is to sleep. First it was an innocent kind of cuddly doze. Then it ended up by profound and sound sleep through family functions, pool parties, cinemas and clubs.

What started out as a small hole of impatience has turned out into a deep dark well of apathy and boredom. And unfortunately, it is very hard to build a pyramid these days...

Sunday, May 10, 2009

On the Wrong Side of Love

I do not normally get into affairs of the heart :)
But I got this letter from a friend and thought I would share it.

Dear S,
A wise man once said: "women's emotions make them stupid while men's desires is what shuts their brain off."
My problem is exactly that. I am desperately, uncontrollably attracted to the absolutely wrong woman. When I see her my throat gets dry, my mind gets clouded and my nerves tingle. unwillingly, I take an entire imaginary trip to our shared Nirvana.
Then I go back home and my mind gets back into operation.

The subject of my affection is the text book case of an Anti-Seducer. She is the most insecure, self-centred person I have ever met.
Sometimes, I get a chance to catch her eye while I am talking to her. Her blank, oblivious, look is obvious: She is not listening and doesn't have the faintest interest in what I am saying. She is taking the time while I finish my meaningless humming to sort out what she wants to say (whether to me or to someone else for that matter...)

Furthermore, her insecurity leads her into a perpetual journey of deceit and aggression. The only truth that might approach her lips is the truth that serves her purpose.
"Don't tell me that you guys are going to This Place!!! Rania my friend had food poisoning and she stayed for a week in bed after eating there." The reason for this statement as it turns out is that she has other plans for this day. Rania never went to This Place and the last time she had food poisoning was during her last year in School (1998!)
In any setting whomever is not present becomes the target to her sour sarcasm and under-the-belt comments: "Mazen was giving the eye to Hanaa without his wife noticing it. Christine always leaves less money than what she ordered And Heba will not go out with us because her mentor/protege Soha instructing her not to do so..."

Nonetheless, I just sit there gazing at her, mesmerised. To all of her intelligent-lacking comments and her cheap moves, I nod my head like a zombie. Infatuation is such a cruel emotion.
What hurts me the most is that Karen (let us just call her that for the sake of this letter) is so into herself to the extent that she doesn't even notice my manoeuvres to get closer to her. In the midst of taking the utter care of herself and focusing in her trivial pursuits. How can she notice anyone else? How can the subtle ways of romance even approach her full of herself heart?
She is single and will be for a long time, I hope..

Dear S, I do not want you to comment and/or reply. Just writing this letter to you is both my relief and my salvation.
A man in control of himself is better than a man in control of a city, they say.

Good bye Karen. You will never know how unpleasant this was while it lasted...