- Mitch Hedberg
(This is Dave. Dave is British. Dave is insane. This is Dave squeezing his own dirty sock that he just lopped up spilled beer with. Like I said ...)
Friends and Family,
For your reading enjoyment:
What do you do when you don’t have to go to work in the morning? Why, stay up stupid late writing blogs and surfing the net in some sad attempt to pretend you are not in a foreign country in a big empty house.
Then you sleep in because you have nothing to get up for so at 9:30 AM, you roll over and say “What the…” and stumble out of bed knowing it’s already stupid hot outside.
Thus started my day.
The house cleaners came today and they were a small squad of humble looking TCNs, led by one guy who spoke broken English. They skipped last Saturday because of the holiday (yes, they took off for OUR Independence Day, for some reason) so the house needed help. Two Marine Majors in one house = nasty.
We reported that one of the A/C units (there are ones in each room) was leaking water all over the floor and that the washer leaks more water than it uses to wash. Great little situation we got going.
Oh yeah, and the cabinets are so cheaply made, the bottom popped out of the silverware drawer so my roomie keeps in on the counter. I feel like I’m living in Animal House and when he leaves, things are going to get fixed up. I’ve grown too accustomed to the good living with my wonderful wife but unfortunately, I’ll have to make it happen myself.
I went to the local hospital today to get my card which meant I went with an assistant (think of the go-to guy for EVERYTHING around here. If you need it, this guy is the man to do it for you. I’ll call him Abdul since that’s like saying John Doe over here and I want to protect his anonymity).
Anyway, we went there and even in a hospital, the strict code of segregating men and women is followed. There was a male waiting room (all open and spacious) and a female waiting room that was closed off with big partitions.
Other than that, it looked like a regular hospital, except everything is stone and marble here. Nothing here is wood so masonry is the norm here. Plus, everything is fenced off. EVERYTHING. Wall, gates, fences, around every single dwelling and business. Wouldn’t want any peeping Toms to drain the family honor which somehow rests with the women here. In their mind, that’s why they package them up like they do. If you figure it out, let me know.
We made our way to a processing room and took a number.
We sat and waited with the others while workers behind what appeared to be bulletproof glass only broken by a little computer camera sticking out a hole, sat along the wall we were facing.
But Abdul is not one to wait and they called him up right away. Behold the power of Abdul.
I handed the guy my paperwork, hoping to Allah he would not ask me any questions because I didn’t know if he knew English and I KNOW I understand very little Arabic. Make that none.
The process went smooth except for a woman barging up to the window obviously wanting help at that very moment. After some bickering, he took her card but then told her to go away. I assume. They were chirping in Arabic so whatever the heated discussion was, I could just go off of tone and mannerisms. And they were not of the happy variety.
This is a common occurrence here. These people have no concept of “waiting for your turn.” They have no problem with walking up to the front of any line and expecting to get helped next.
In fact, this happened again while I was being processed, this time by a man. Same situation; he walked right up, a heated discussion ensued, and he was sent away. I would love to hear the justification he had. Everyone thinks they are special here.
I got my card which I assume will get me help if I need to go to the hospital here. Hopefully no one will try cutting the line if I come in in bad shape. But I wouldn’t be surprised.
Later, my roomie took me to the cash machine to get some SAR out. This is a cash-based society so you do almost everything in cash (thus, cash-based…. Master of the Obvious). I took 1000 SAR out ($266.66) which will hopefully last me more than a few days.
I did learn a little trick to keep my money safe. After I’m done at the machine, I reinsert my card and punch in a bogus PIN. I guess there are crooks that have little readers they can put in the machine and get info, to include the PIN, of the last person to use the machine. Clever little bastards.
I killed some time in the afternoon going to the shoppette and getting some groceries. I’m trying like hell to get all the ingredients to spaghetti, chili, and hamburger stew. Seems the seasonings are the long pole in the tent but I’m having my wife send them to me. Until then, I starve. Actually, I order out or eat lame.
Tonight, we had my roomie’s massalama (that’s the closest I can come to what they say). It means his going away party and let me give you the ingredients:
Take 13 men, mostly Brits
Add a few cases of beer
One bottle of Jack Daniels
One bottle of Southern Comfort
A big plastic bucket of homemade sangria
A mountain of poker chips
Four decks of cards
Two tables
An iPod full of British tunes
A dozen boxes of cigarettes
A half dozen pizzas
Mix all together until 0400
I met a lot of people but the villa was trashed, the beer was gone, you could see the smoke hanging in the air, and I lost 200 SAR almost immediately (this was my introduction to this “Texas Hold ‘Em” phenomenon.)
Seems I’m pretty aggressive with my bets and like to bluff. Imagine that.
We played poker, we ate, we inhaled second-hand smoke (maybe that was me) and we listened to classics like “Daydream Believer,” “The Mighty Quinn,” and more George Michael than I want to admit that I know.
My favorite line of the night was someone yelling “You fu$@#%$#@ WANKER!”
Not at me of course but it was like spending the evening in an English pub.
I ended up going upstairs at 0200 hoping the downstairs would still be there in the morning and not looking like some scene out of Twister.
(Some of the crew celebrating this night. Randy (second from right) is the outgoing whose party it was for)
F.M.L. of the Day:: “Today, I woke up to go pee and my cat followed me into the bathroom as usual. Then, in a not so usual fashion, she tried to jump from the sink to the top of the toilet, missed, and fell into the bowl while I was peeing. I'm scratched in a bad place, I have urine to clean up off the bathroom floor, and a traumatized cat. FML.”
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