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renatoobeidsworld   Wednesday, October 03, 2007   Just got back from a walk to Jounieh with Eli. The driver of the taxi we caught back home was a retard – surprise, surprise. I didn’t have anything smaller than a fifty thousand lira note and he claimed not to have any change so I told him that we should get some change in Jounieh but he insisted that there must be a petrol station en route up here where we could get some change. Spent half the drive trying to convince him that there wasn’t and the other half was self explanatory – a petrol station wasn’t going to appear out of thin air. I asked him where he was from and he replied that he was from Akkar (extreme north). I told him that we were from here so we knew where the petrol stations were here and that when we went to Akkar he could tell us where the petrol stations in Akkar were but, in the meantime, he should kindly permit us to tell him where the petrol stations were here. After he was finally convinced that there were no petrol stations up here, he observed that it was a ‘’miracle’’ that there wasn’t. ‘’Miracle’’ in this colloquial context means something very rare and very strange. I agreed and, playing on words, told him that he should go light a candle (which is what Lebanese Christians usually do when a religious miracle occurs) even though he was clearly Muslim. When we got up here he tried to pull the oldest trick in the book – the old dollars-not-liras switcheroo. When we first engaged him in Jounieh, he said that he wanted 15,000 lira (10 USD) but I insisted that I never pay more than 10,000 lira, but when we got up here he said that I had agreed on ten dollars rather than 10, 000 lira which was patent nonsense because I clearly said 10,000 lira, besides, why would I refuse to pay 15,000 lira yet agree to pay it’s equivalent in dollars? I stood my ground and insisted that he give me 40,000 lira change instead of the 35,000 lira he tried to stiff me with (I don’t know where the change ‘’miraculously’’ appeared from but it certainly wasn’t from a petrol station because, as I may have mentioned before, there are no petrol stations up here although apparently they’re all over the place in Akkar). He grudgingly conceded after a short stand-off. That done, Eli and I got out and I told the taxi driver that he should consider himself lucky that I didn’t sic the cops guarding the building onto him. He swore at me as he drove off, I returned the favour and we exchanged further pleasantries. The secret to a long stress-free life is to avoid Lebanese taxi drivers and internet chat rooms. During our walk down I was telling Eli about how some Crimean bitch* in a chat room called me an ‘’idiot guy’’ because I thought that Crimea was in Russia whereas apparently it used to be a part of Russia but became an autonomous republic of Ukraine after the break-up of the Soviet Union. This parochial bitch obviously thinks that her little rump republic is the centre of the world and that people who can’t place it correctly are stupid. Eli agreed and said ‘’it’s not it’s like Florida, the headquarters of the United Nations’’. I told him that the United Nations was based in New York. ‘’So what’s in Florida? Oh, that’s right – Disneyland’s in Florida!’’ Although he does have Ali G moments like that Eli is usually quite switched on. In Jounieh he pointed out the oddest road sign you’ll ever see – in a circle with a vertical line through it was written ‘’no parking’’ (in Arabic). Eli observed that ''no parking'' was crossed out so you can park there and said it was like writing ‘’no parking…NOT!’’ That sign is basically saying that you’re not allowed to not park there so you have to park there a la those no smoking signs that have a cigarette with a line through it – meaning that you are not allowed to do what is crossed out there. *Eli reckons that the best way to determine whether someone is retarded or not is to give them a computer and an internet connection. 3:40 am

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