Broadway in Kuwait

In my humble experience at a government institution, I thought I had seen it all. From the egotisical and overpowered to the frustrated and underpaid, the unmotivated and underworked to the stressed out and overlooked. I've seen it all, so I thought. But there ain't nothing like the sight of a room full of middle aged men engaging in fierce verbal combat bombing away atrocious insults and ego lacerating accusations from across the table.

Aye, the plot does thicken. For in this room only one woman is honored with front row seats to this theatrical event, under the prime responsiblity of documenting this meeting; the details of which will be later incorporated in a monumentally grand "Official Report".

So in this historical boardroom from which I will gather the necessary developments for the "Official Report", I planked a tent as far as Switzerland and declared neutrality even before the ensuement of war. I am not there to take sides and participate, nor am I there as the United Nations to regulate. I am simply there to witness and record. Mouth shut, but eyes wide open.

The dogfight commenced almost as instantly as the shut of the door. Spittle was flying in the air hands clenched into tight fists and frighteningly intense glares emitted pungent radiation. Then came the offending statement of outrageous splendor:

"KIL KHARA"

Immediately, the offender apologetically turned to me as the only woman in the room, along with all the other men to check that I hadn't broken into a 100,000,000 fragile pieces for hearing such revoltingly foul language. A short moment of silence commanded the room during this stare-down, and I felt obligated to fake a look of disgruntlement expressing severe displeasure that my feminine virgin ears were subjected to such horrid articulations.
Ok, so I frowned. Can we get on with the show already? Nay. The silence lingered. And it resonated into stillness. I supposed the men needed a moment or two to collect unstable thoughts and mentally prepare more cordial insults. While I don't really care if they curse their mothers out till the break of dawn, I was glad to have a few minutes to rest my hand violently exhuasted from furious writing. As soon as I put the pen down to enjoy a momentary relief, a hollering scream was fired from across the room:
"CD! !! You are supposed to write this"

I am sweating in a simmering pool of moritification, humiliation and utter embarassment. Did he really have to say my name and give me a role into this mess? For God's sake, be a man and shoot your fire at the actual enemy, not at neutral Switzerland, quietly participating as the gentle audience! Well, I suppose something was needed to break the awkward silence, and in matters of war, what better way to re-instigate the fire than dragging the neutral parties into the heated pit. No one can really ever enjoy complete neutrality, can they?

So no worries, I moved on, reconciling myself with the fact that is was a nominal price to pay to witness such grand A+ , first class entertainment; better than any Ramadan soap opera on TV or silly Qurgai3an antic. Alas, the thirst for real theatre and fine drama is now finally, satisfyingly, quenched!

The 12 Step Plan

Somebody's Momma heard of my existence through anonymous sources, and decided to suggest me to the Son. The Son has no idea what I look like, never even heard about me till now, but is open enough to give me a shot (or maybe he likes to listen to Momma). I wish The Son could just sneak in at my place of work and see me quietly, without my knowledge, to save me from the horror, but no. Oh no. His Momma decides to come clean to Mother about The Son's interest to 'check me out' -with the preverbial 'no strings attached' clause. Parents are unsurprisingly ecstatic about the idea. So excited that instead of directing the Son to my office behind my back, they propose that we both meet, face to face, in a public place. This is the designed 12 step plan of stage one of the marriage program:

1-I make an appointment with the best hairstylist in town, I get a professional to do my make-up, I put on a pricy pastel colored outfit.
2-I get lectured briefly by Father. Then I get further coaching techniques from Mother, Auntie(s) and Grandmother.
3- I go to a restaurant with Mother and Auntie. We order drinks, salad, main course. Halfway through main course, Auntie makes "The Call".
4- Followed by "The Call" The Son appears with His Momma and join us at the table. We order dessert and coffee.
5-His Momma will study me with fierce scrutiny, and make a mental note on how I rank in the female scale of worthiness. The Son will be respectable enough not to stare so blatantly, but will nevertheless make his own valuations.
6- His Momma will interview me on my background, history, work, friendships in her most casual attempt to make conversation. Mother will do the same to the Son.
7-Mother will launch an advertisement campaign about my being to His Momma, highlighting that I speak X language(s), play X instrument(s) and that I can cook X dish(es). His Momma will backfire as she joins the advertising squad, pumped and fueled to indicate Son's special talents.
8-I will try not to feel akward about the sudden advertising aggression, and will throw in a few sentences as per Father's instructions, lest I begin to appear antisocial.
9-The Son will make akward jokes, probably for the same reason, and we will all pretend to find them funny.
10- I will quietly and seriously contemplate suicide. But I will order the check instead.
11-The Son will demonstrate his manhood and insist to pay. Mother will not allow it, shattering the illusion unwittingly.
12-We exchange flaccid handshakes, flash animated smiles, blurt insincere statements, and then flee to vehicles of assumed glory.

According to Auntie, arranged marriages are comin' back. According to Grandmother, it is about time. According to Mother, I'm not very young, and I'm also single. According to Father, 'opportunities' like this don't come by everyday. According to Me, THIS 12 STEP CRAP IS A CROCK OF BULLSHIT!

I'm not interested in such anguish.
But thank you for offering.

On a Lighter Note

Nothing aggravates me more than totally unqualified people earning about the same money I do or more except when those very unqualified people don't even show up for work. Sometimes, those people are penalized somewhere in the future, but when they are women, they manage to glide and sail smoothly on leaving work early, coming in late, and doing little work for 4 months straight. The amazing secret? "I'm engaged to be married, I have things to plan".

This statement is the preverbial Get out of Jail pass to every irascible boss or overpowering manager who immediately reverses into a loving sympathetic father figure, full of expressive felicitations and best wishes for the New Bride to Be. Meanwhile, a big chunk of her incompleted projects gets dumped on my desk, and I pull insane after work hours scramming to clean her mess, while she struts around flipping through bridal magazines to fish for creative wedding ideas. I'm not the only one that suffers the heavier workload, my humorous male colleague, Wisecracker, is a victim of this injustice too. While I internalize my work related frustrations or anonymously publish them on the internet for everyone to read (thus shoving a nice Christian Dior stilleto up my career's ass), Wisecracker chooses to be very vocal and public about his embittered sentiments to me:
Wisecracker: Maa 9arat, CD, I m slaving away everyday, coming to work on time and leaving late while Miss Bride to Be is having social hours in her office, discussing flower decorations and gay lebanese designers!
CD: yalla maykhalif, maa bugaa shay 3ala el 3irs, she'll get married, have kids and the boss won't take her excuses anymore then Bam - he'll ask her to leave! heheheh...
Wisecracker: I'm buying you dinner when that happens! Bas mita bit-fuknaa witizawaj?
CD: khala9, she already did her milcha. The wedding should be soon.
Wisecracker: ishsaalfat hal wedding? she probably already lost her virginity anyway!
CD: Laa, yalla 3ad, they do that after the wedding party, dude.
Wisecracker: C'mon CD, look at her face, she's GLOWING! I bet you their dirty places touched at least four times this weekend.
CD: Noway dude, where the hell are they gonna sneak around to have sex? Its Ramadan for God's sake.
Wisecracker: They don't need to sneak around, they already did the milcha, she can bring him into her bedroom and her parents will say nothing!

I realized at this point that we were having a very inappropriate discussion, in a very inappropriate place, about someone inappropriately located within close proximity to my office! Its funny how when you really click with a character like Wisecracker, you end up talking about outrageous things (such as your co-worker's sex life) without even noticing. I bit my tongue immeadiately and changed the topic of conversation, but I didn't resist to come and tell you all about it :)

Method of Survival

So far I have successfully mocked my fellow government employees, trivial venus envy, classic male-family entrenched egos, and then indulged in an emotional discourse, reaking of typical feminine feelings (helplessness, guilt, sympathy etc.). Well now the time has come for me to go back to mocking, and this time mock somebody totally unexpected..ME! So, here it goes:

While returning to Kuwait from a business trip last year, I was seated next to a very attractive young man in First Class. He was sharply dressed in an immaculate suit, his skin was a delicious cocoa bronze with a tint of redness, and his eyes were fiery green with black eye lashes as sharp as swords. He was hot. I guessed he would be south american, or maybe sicilian (but he didn't have the curly hair), or maybe a mix of both. Turns out the man was Indian (who would have thought!), a Harvard Suma Cum Laud, and wasn't coming to Kuwait on business. My curiousity was piqued to say the least:
CD: So why on earth are you coming to kuwait?
Hot Indian Harvard Guy: I come to kuwait to party.

I needed about 5 minutes to register that sentence, and then another 2 minutes to recover from the surprise, and five more to formulate a semi decent response:
CD: oh.. you have friends in Kuwait that you party with?
Hot Indian Harvard Guy: Yes, I met them from my days in Boston. I know (a famous Kuwaiti person) and (another famous Kuwaiti person) and (a bigtime Kuwaiti jackpot). (Bigtime Kuwaiti jackpot) throws great parties in his yatch at this time of year, with always the best entertainers.

I thought about offering to show Hot Indian Harvard Guy around Kuwait but I realized it was pointless, he was in the hands of much more glamourous people that throw parties with fire shows and human statues and actually, this is not the point of my post! The point is that I too, would like to indulge in some partying every now and then, I mean I'm young, I'm single, and I want to do what I used to do when I was in college, which is to have some fun. But because I'm in kuwait, I automatically have to put up the "I'm holier than thou" front so that everyone will think of me as the 'sweet girl from highschool' they endearingly remember. And as much as I get tempted to tiptoe out of my house in the wee hours of the morning to a roaring party, there is always a nagging fear that I might run into Oppressive Cousin or a member of his clan that will surely deliver the gossip. Besides, its not really worth to risk my untarnished (at least in my belief) reputation to be in the company of people who ultimately won't even respect me. So my decision was to maintain a low profile at all times, and just not socialise out of the limits of cultural propriety defined by soceity & traditional convention.
The way I rectified wild urges, depression, and creeping temptations is by travelling. Everytime I get invited to a hot party, I make it a point to travel to another country. That way, I don't feel like I'm missing out on a great experience, heck, I'm in another city with far more excitement, so there! It also feels kinda fabulous to turn down an invitation by saying "sorry, dear, can't come, I'll be in London at the time (or Paris, or Nyc, or Dubai..whatever destination affordable at the moment). This technique has obviously diluted my resources, but it saved me from possible mental instability.

Now the time has come where I am yet again invited to a great post Eid party, the attendees of which will probably mostly be expats, but I'm still not willing to risk being spotted. So now I am about to spend fifty percent of what I earned this month on a trip out of Kuwait for 5 days to avoid feeling sorry for myself. We all have our sneaky methods of survival, don't we?

Weak Heart

I had some reservations writing this post, since it doesn't go well with the mockery theme intended for this blog. I guess I couldn't resist indulging in an emotional explication us females are so effusively notorious for. I promise it won't be often.

I wrote previously about Opressive Cousin, and his detestful manner in asserting unjustfied authority over me by questioning my social fellowships. So it shouldn't be a surprise that I cringed when he extended an invitation to join him for Futoor, seeing that his parents are out of the country and he was dining alone. For the record, I said no. Unfortunately for me, he does not take no for an answer, and under much duress from his demanding language and family pressure at Grandmother's house, I consented reluctantly.

I was plotting the whole day on how I would stand him up, because I really didn't want to endure another sitting with him, especially on my own. Come Futoor time, and I found myself sitting at the dining table with Parents, still plotting, whilst enjoying a hot bowl of lentil soup. After only a few sips, he called me on my cell phone to 'alert' me that Athan had commenced:
Opressive Cousin: CD, yalla wainich
CD: Um, you know, I'm kinda tired and I totally forgot about our Futoor date.
Raging Oppressive Cousin: what? (practically screaming)
CD: I'm really tired, and I'm having Futoor now with Parents
Oppressive Cousin: fine, as you wish.

Click
Respite, relief, deliverance! Now I can go back to my soup. Lo and Behold a phonecall from Cousin's hysterical nanny gone beserk:
Hysterical Nanny: CD, Cousin too much shouting for me. I no tell you to come Futoor, now he angry for me. I call you but you no answer my telephone shino sawee ana. Now he shouting for me CD. (I hear screaming fits in the background, he then grabs the phone, yelling obscene profanities at Hysterical Nanny)
Opressive Cousin: CD, did Nanny call you today?
CD: um no
Raging Oppressive Cousin: (yelling at Hysterical Nanny) You were supposed to call her, why are you lying..
CD: wait, Cousin, she did call. But I did not see her missed call untill you called me.
Raging Oppressive Cousin: why?
CD: I was sleeping all day.
Tumbled Oppressive Cousin: humph! Ok.
Click

While I was savoring into my avocado salad, another annoying phonecall:
Trembling Hysterical Nanny: CD, I am too much sorry. You come now, we make too much food for you. Please you come now, I make cooking for you. Cousin is alone, you know. (Her voice is disturbingly shaky, and her pleading actually touches me)

I continued to ponderously nibble at my salad, replaying the whole scenario in my head. Oh what the hell, I left my salad, picked up my car keys and headed to the door.

At Oppressive Cousin's dining table, I wasn't received with any special decor or gusto. On the contrary, Opressive Cousin wolfed down his Machboos indifferently, and presumptiously asserted:
" you know, it would have been a lot more fun for me to be eating in front of my TV, but I just thought I'd invite you 3alashan awajib"

Ok, how can I respond to that without being cruel? No idea. I opted for silence. The guilt was beginning to eat me up. We eat together in awkward stillness. He monstrously gobbles all his food in melancholic fury. And I am so stricken with remorse I could hardly finish my plate. At the end of the meal, he gets up and drops this on my conscience:
"we are family, you are like my sister and this is your home too. Please feel welcome to visit anytime, I don't need to invite you. If you like, I'll be watching TV and eating dessert, you can join me. "
He goes off to the TV room.

OUCH!

Grandmother's Futoor

While discussing the flawed urban engineering plan in Dubai which had materialized ridiculous daily traffic all around the city, I mentioned fleetingly a male friend's painful commute to work. He lives only 50 feet away , right across the street from his office, yet he has to go through a 30 minute drive every morning just to make an annoying U turn. Again, I mentioned this friend's misfortune fleetingly, for the obvious purpose of contributing to the conversation. But you see, the mere mention of a 'male friend' to my superincumbent male cousin caused quite the stir at Grandmother's dining table. Almost immediately the suspicious uproar ensued, shifting the main topic of conversation (Dubai Traffic) to a gruelling interrogation:
Oppressive Cousin: CD, who is this 'male friend'?
CD: uhh.. he's a Syrian guy friend of mine
Oppressive Cousin: Oh? and he works in Dubai?
CD: yeah
Oppressive Cousin: I didn't know you had Syrian male friends.
CD: Uh, yeah, well I do.
Oppressive Cousin: how do you know him?

Ok, you've got to be kidding me. I can only take this line of questioning from two people in this world; my father, and my boss. But any hypocrite that attempts to publicly question me and my moral behavior to insinuate sexual misconduct, especially a loser that amassed an ostentatious playboy reputation worthy of trillions of STDs , can totally shove a fork up his behind. I'm not complaining about the double standard imposed in our society, since that is an obvious solid concrete unchangeable tragic reality. (I've unwieldily come to terms with it years ago, and I've moved on) I'm ranting about the affair that a man who has no direct responsiblity over me feeling completely entitled to question me, a grown working adult mind you, under the grounds that we are 'related'. I was so compelled to retort back:
"well, my dear self righteous Oppressive Cousin, I don't really recall the premises of meeting my Syrian friend, because I was severely intoxicated on some high quality substances that night. I can assure you, however, that it was a raging party that I attended overflowing with illegal booze and horny men. I also know that the following day, I woke up in my Syrian friend's bed in some seedy apartment in Hawali, butt naked. Doesn't that rock? Anyway, he moved to follow a lucrative career in Dubai, and I thought it wise to keep in touch with him, you know, for the occasional booty call when I visit"

Unfortunately I don't live in a kick ass fantasy world where I could totally say something like that and get away with it, so I stuck with this pithy pragmatic response:
"um, we went to college together, and we sort of keep in touch online. "

Feline Competition

As much as I love Ramadan and all the late hours glory, there comes with the month some tedious formalities that I m expected to fullfill, such as dragging myself out of my couch in the middle of my semi hypnotic brainless TV watching spree to get completely decked out for Grandmother's Istiqbal. At the Istiqbal I'm expected to flash my ebullient smile to every passing guest, pour tea/coffee, and pass out confectionary sweets and chocolates while being completely and utterly sized up and devoured by every encroaching eye that inevitably makes a mental note of my score and general rank in the female scale of marriage potential. Down with my 200 grand college degree, the four years that I slaved in school to discover what it is that ignites me, my worldly experiences and interests, because bottom line the basis of my score all boils down to how I perform and appear in social functions. Lovely.

So with all the superficial kissing and redundant greetings to the dozens of people that I don't even know, and that I hardly expect will have any impact on my matrimonial fate, (contrary to what Grandmother and Mother believe) I finally found a moment to sit down, relax, and perhaps reflect on the whole theatrical performance in front me.

In came Degenerate, a childhood enemy that found a passion to compete with me in every possible aspect of life, strutting down the hallway of Grandmother's salon, prada bag swaying in the air. I gaze at Degenerate momentarily, her Prada clad outfit disturbing my philanthropic conscience recently ignited by previous day's reading of "make poverty history" campaign efforts. We engage in the regular superficial conversation about life and work, usually aimed to advertise and embellish the glamour of our lives to each other, and subsequently to incite envy and mild depression, untill she shoots for the jackpot:
Degenerate: so CD you must be really depressed working in a government institution, being underpaid and all.
CD: hehehh..Its not so bad, half of the time I'm travelling so I find it quite exciting.
Degenerate : Oh? (Gaining sudden interest in my satisfaction and raising her eyebrows unwittingly) where do you travel to?
CD: All over; Europe , USA and Asia. I'm excited we're going to start visiting South America very soon.
Degenerate: (fuming under her breath) I would hate to have a job like that, whats the fun with travelling anyway? You just attend your meetings and go back to the hotel. It must be so tiring and boring. I feel bad for you habibti taksireen il khaa6er.

Ok, this is surpassing my ability to maintain civil behavior to repugnant human beings that I can not stand. At this point, I can either externalize my disgust by ripping her spine out of her throat, or I find myself vocalising statements treading on strictly banned territory:
CD: Really? It certainly beats lounging at home all day. So why did you quit your job? (Grandmother eyeing me intensely, considering I was instructed not to bring this up to Degenerate, for she was fired)

Degenerate mumbles some bs about having time to go to the gym, read, enjoy the spa and hang out with friends. In other words, make herself appear like the complete spoiled unmotivated idiot that she is to the audience seated in Grandmother's living room. Not that it mattered to them that she is one, but it brought wailing joy to my personal account and score of female ranking.

New In Town

Whats up bloggers! This will be a bitter online mockery of my surroundings. I am a single Kuwaiti gal full of pent up frustration. I work in a government institution and I deal with BS everyday, this is my way to share the love.