Saudi Logic. Or Lack Thereof.

Iqbal tells the following the joke (in his Pakistani accent):

“A man is shopping for a new brain. He goes into a brain museum, the man working there is showing him around. The first brain they look at is a very nice, very big brain. American brain, very good. $50. The next brain is a British brain, also nice and big, $40. He looks at a few more, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, ok brains, $20. Then the man walks him into a small room where there is a very small, very little brain on display in it’s own special case. This is a Saudi brain the man tells him, very expensive. $1000. Aghast, the shopper says, “Buy why? Why so expensive? It’s so small.” To which the man replies, “Brand new, never been used.”

Then Iqbal laughs and laughs and so do I, because the irony of it all is just too much. Ever since he told me that joke months ago, when he’s not muttering  under his breath in the front seat, “Son of a beech”, he is saying, “Very expensive brain this guy.”

Maybe it’s not fair to say there’s a complete absence of logic, maybe it does make sense to somebody. I just haven’t met that somebody yet, and to be fair, I’ve had this conversation with several Saudi’s. Let me site a few examples:

Just down the street from us, King Abdullah has commissioned the construction of Riyadh Financial City. As you can see from the stock photo I found, it’s huge. Wade and I ventured the other day there are at least 30-40 buildings going up simultaneously. Here’s the head scratcher…they have no tenets at this stage for these 30+ buildings and worse, they still don’t know how they’re going to get water in there. For real. Apparently, they’ve piped for plumbing but still don’t where or how the water will reach this new ‘city’. Maybe if your pockets are deeper than every African country combined, you can afford to be so frivolous. And ridiculous.

The Roundabout. Or the Saudi death trap. Saudi’s seem to think that those COMING into the roundabout have the right of way. This makes being inside a roundabout, which abound here, every bit as insane as it sounds. Cars literally flying in and out, there have been many occasions, where I had I not feared for loss of limb I could have reached out my window and stuck my hand into the vehicle next to me. When I was at ballet last week, I was talking to another mom. A lovely, sharp Saudi woman. We were talking about her country and she said, “There are a few things we have a problem with here. Like the queue, we’re not very good with the queue.” I laughed out loud and said, “No. No you’re not.”

The first answer is always no. When we first moved to Dubai, I remember going out with Wade the first time and thinking, “Who in the freaking world do you think you are?” He had seemingly turned into a pushy, obnoxious American overnight. Then I lived here for three weeks. This is not an uncommon scenario… In a restaurant: “I noticed there aren’t any napkins on the table, could you please bring us some napkins” “Oh, no, sorry madam, we not have any napkins.” “But you are a restaurant, how do you not have any napkins” “Oh yes, sorry madam, they are all gone.” So then I might suggest that they go double check in the back, or maybe they have some paper towels, or maybe someone could run down the street to the closest market and grab some, because they are a restaurant and for the love, my children are two and four. And then low and behold, they’ll go in the back and 9 times out of 10 will miraculously find some napkins, for which I express much gratitude and appreciation. The fact of the matter is, if you don’t push, if you don’t ask, the answer will remain no, nothing will happen and you will eat your entire meal without a napkin. For someone who has avoided confrontation much of her life, I’ve gotten frighteningly comfortable with it.

You can’t buy a vehicle until you’ve been a Saudi resident for 12 months. And GE can’t seem to negotiate their corporate car rate with anyone…I have a few guesses as to why (lack of logic), but I’ll let that lie. As a result, Wade has rotated through a few gems of rental cars. The last beauty we had, had two bumpers stickers on the back. One, in Arabic, that reads, “Mashallah”, an Arabic greeting meaning, “God be with you.” Thank heavens it wasn’t anything offensive. The other one…an Arabic gangster of sorts.

Can you just see my white husband driving around with these stickers on the back of his Hyundai? A working professional? Kills me. Then he got stopped at a check point one night because one of the letters on his license plate had been scratched off. And did I mention the smell of smoke was almost intoxicating? This all from a supposedly reputable rental car company. We can only be left to assume that Wade was rented the owners, cousins car as he the owner was fresh out. He was called to return it earlier than negotiated. Probably, because the cousin wanted his car back.

And this. Try as I might, this will always defy logic. I mean, you’d have to want to go swimming REALLY bad.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You must allow yourself to laugh in this country and the seemingly impossible scenarios you find yourself in. Or you’d lose it. Totally lose it. And it would be a damn shame to lose you head to someone with a much smaller, more expensive brain than you.