Eh-French Eh-Fries

There's an inconvenience to hailing from a country which boasts a dictatorship regime. Especially for a kid. Just ask my brother and I -- Oh, I haven't introduced you to him yet. I have a brother named Layth, who's two years younger than me. When we were little we were the best of buds. He's cool. And very smart. He designs computer chips now. Anyway, back to my point. ...What was my point? Oh yeah. Dictatorship and how it can really be a drag. I'm not talking about the obvious reasons: That you live under an oppressive regime. That even when you leave the country, you may have relatives who still live under this oppressive regime. And that you have to think twice about pulling any shenanigans -- like speaking out against the oppressive regime, lest said regime takes an unwanted interest in any of your relatives who may still live there. Those are very important reasons, but when you're 8 and 10 years old you couldn't care less. Because when you're 8 and 10 years old, there's only one thing you take away from the whole 'being from a less-than-democratic country' scenario: YOU CAN'T EVER COMPLAIN TO YOUR PARENTS. ABOUT ANYTHING. Any discomfort you now feel doesn't even come close to what you would have experienced had you still been living in Iraq. Let me explain: Let's say you want to go to McDonalds. Mom says 'no.' You insist (whine) This is what you'll get:

"Mac-Do-Nalds! You want to go to Mac-Do-Nalds! And eat Eh-French Eh-fries?" (remember her tendency to add extra syllables to words..? "Don't you think your cousin Dahlia would love to eat Eh-french Eh-fries?!! But she can't, because they don't have Mac-Do-Nalds!! They don't even have Eh-French Eh-fries! They have one potato to share between the five of them! And they are happy!"

Fine - I didn't want Eh-french Eh-fries anyway... Or maybe you utter a version of the following phrase, which usually begins with:

"But all the other kids..."

It can be

"But all the other kids are going to Disneyland on their Christmas vacation!"

or

"But all the other kids get to stay up late and watch Knight Rider"

or in my case:

"But all the other kids get to sleep over at Mindy's house!"

No sooner than those words are out of your mouth than you better be prepared for the fallout.

"Other kids? The ones back home who wish they could just have enough money to go to the su-par-mar-ket!? Or maybe you mean the kids who don't have a television to watch. And have to listen to crickets at night for entertainment! And what do you mean you want to sleep at Mindy's house. You could be like your Aunt Nabeela who used to share a room with seven sisters. She dreamed of having her own bed. You have your own room! "

Should you then offer the reasonable rebuttal of,

"Well I didn't ask you bring me to this country."

Then you can expect an equally long diatribe about how UN-A-GRATE-FOOL you are.

" I can't believe I raised such an UN-A-GRATE-FOOL daughter. What did I do wrong?..."

God forbid she should ever hear you utter the words,

"I'm bored."

Then it's GAME OVER...

"Bored?! You better thanks God you have the luxury to be bored! Your cousin Hisham carries bags of rice on his back every day after school to help his parents make money. Last year he fainted in the street because of heat stroke and hit his head on a rock! I am sure he would be very happy to be bored. Bored!...."

This can go on and on, until not only have you given up from exhaustion, you are now pleading with her to stop. You're picking up your dad's Pharmacotherapy book and feigning interest in it in hopes that she would just forget you brought it up. Your brother meanwhile tries to hold his breath and be still, so she'll maybe forget she has a son. Just waiting for it to blow over.... So.... Yeah, those were not particularly fun days. Eventually, Layth and I got hip to the situation and came up with secret code words in order to communicate freely. So BORED became GRATEFUL "Hey, I'm so Grateful!" we would say to each other and fall down in peals of laughter at our little inside joke. We'd spend hours trying to come up with new words just in case our code got cracked. Our code-making proved to be so intricate that we ourselves got confused. Was HAPPY the code word for TIRED or STUPID? As in, "You're so happy!" or "I'm so happy" ??? Which is it? So we'd have to start over with a new system. We got so caught up in trying to come up with new code words that it left us little time to be bored. ....maybe mom was on to something...