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...