My trouble with men

My trouble with men began at an early age. Age 6 to be exact. Kindergarten. I know what you’re thinking… “Six years old and you’re only in kindergarten?!” Well, remember when I told you I came to the States when I was four years old? I only spoke Arabic, and had to learn English, which put me behind a bit. (It’s okay, later on I ended up skipping from Fourth to Fifth grade in the middle of the year, so it all evened out in the end.) But I started school later than most kids. It could also be due to the fact that I fainted at my kindergarten entrance exam and the counselor told my parents I wasn’t emotionally ready to attend. No joke! This ‘exam’ consisted of putting blocks of various shapes and sizes into their corresponding pegs. I think I took too long, or put the square into the circle peg, or drew too many birds in the sky on a piece of paper – which apparently is a sign of emotional disturbance in children… The point is, the counselor decided I had a problem (these days they call them ‘issues’, but back then they were good-old-fashioned problems) and she recommended that I wait a year before matriculating into kindergarten. CUT TO: KINDERGARTEN Here I am, Six years old and a bit taller than the other kids. I’m politely sitting at my desk, when this kid named Adam, with a big afro of curly red hair, rushes up to me. ADAM: Hi Sami. SAMI: Hi Adam. He awkwardly holds out a wad of paper. ADAM: I got you something. Uh...it's from my collection. It's brand new. He stands there long enough to see me unwrap the paper to find a GLEAMING SHINY QUARTER from that year. 1979. Did I mention it's really shiny? Adam looks as if he's about to say something, but decides against it and chooses instead to run away in the opposite direction from which he came. I spend the rest of the day admiring the quarter, which finds a prominent place on my desk. Then I go home and proudly show it to my mother.... MY MOTHER: You can not take this! Disgustedly, she holds the quarter between her thumb and forefinger as far away from her as she can. MY MOTHER: This is how it starts. Next thing he's going to think he owns you! My father walks in the room. MY MOTHER (still): Brahim, talk to your daughter. A boy gave her this! She shoves the quarter in his face. He puts on his glasses and studies it. MY FATHER: Does he think you're cheap? My mother looks at me satisfied. MY FATHER: He should have given you a silver dollar! She snatches the quarter out of his hand. MY MOTHER: That's a good way to set an example. She turns to me. MY MOTHER: Never ever let a man buy you with gifts, Samira. You give this back to him and tell him you are not for sale! That is how you get a man to respect you. The next day in Kindergarten, I see Adam. We are standing face-to-face...or in our case, his face to my 2nd shirt button. I can only imagine what disadvantage this puts him in as I deliver the following news: ME: Adam, I can't take this money from you because you're a boy and I'm not for sale! Once again Adam looks as if he's about to say something, but once again he decides against it, choosing instead to run away....but not before bursting into tears first. So now, nearly thirty years later - Can I say that my experience with men has improved all that much? Well, I still love a shiny new quarter...

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...