Desert Girl’s Most Excellent Adventure

I was having such an excellent adventure that I didn’t post whilst on vacation. (Whilst, that’s Briddish for “while” – so says me.) Dayam – I so didn’t want to come back. But alas, I ran out of money (and vacation leave) and my hair and skin was ruined by the humidity of DC/Virginia summer. Plus, don’t even get me started on apache-like mosquitoes that have now made me appear as though I’ve got small pox: They just Nas-teh.

You know what pisses me off (you probably know lots of things that piss me off if you have read even more than one blog post herein)…. Hair dryers in the States only go up to around 2000 watts (I think the regular consumer brands are 1800). Funk dat. When the humidity is so high, you need way more power. I don’t even get my hair dried before it is wet again with the pea shooter that I was using there. They sell hair dryers with more power, but you must be a card-carrying “hair care professional” to get one. Mine in Kuwait is like 3200. That’s kind of like the equivalent of sticking your head inside a microwave, I believe. I can dry my hair and strip paint at the same time. Anyhooo… What tha F?! Does Big Brother have to monitor ab-so-lutely everything in the States? I feel that way when I go there. There are so many rules to obey – and I’m just no good at conforming. But hey – the US is the place to go if you are looking for endless aisles of cereal. The Land of Choice. I get overwhelmed going to grocery stores there. It is almost to the point of freaking me out. It is like going to a restaurant with an extensive menu and too many pages/choices: what do you DO?

Everything on TV there is about money or health problems. It’s also full of commercials of people telling you what you SHOULD do: Get your degree; sue somebody; take Viagra. I don’t want to hear that shit. Leave me alone. We all know that I have been in Kuwait to long.

I digress. Have you noticed that I generally start my best posts with things that piss me off first?

I had such a good time. Oh…. My……God. I didn’t want to leave. I was so busy having fun with my family. I know that I talk a whole lot of hooey about drinking and partying, but the sad truth of the matter is that when I go to visit my family, I am generally very low-key and quiet: My sister/bro-in-law set the security alarm set at 9:30 – 10. My nephew calls it “lock down”. I think if I had lived in a house with a home security system on it when I was 14, I would have had to hide my boyfriends in the closet until the next day. (Did I say that in public?)

I was SUCH a bad, bad teenaged girl. We (teenagers) never had any money, so we saved/scraped for change to sneak out of the house and take taxis to nightclubs in DC. I used to dance all night long and then change out of my party clothes (back into PJs) in the bushes outside our house to sneak back in; so it would appear that I was just downstairs getting something to eat. My whole teenage experience could have been titled, “Dances with Pedophiles” (many of them Kuwaiti I might add). My poor nephew is so sheltered. He may never know the joys of having a homeless guy staring at him changing clothes at 3:45 am; or stepping on slugs on the front walkway with bare feet because he took his shoes off to get into the house via “stealth mode”; or getting busted by his father sneaking back into the house. I can’t even imagine what my life would have been like without fake IDs. I had my 18th birthday party at a nightclub called “Tramps” (now a Benetton, I think) where I had been going since I was 13. Everybody knew me: the waiters, the bartenders, the owner, patrons…. The DJ announced that it was my birthday and everybody clapped. Then, he shouted out, “How old are you?” and I shouted back “18!” and that’s when the jaws started hitting the floor. Including the owner’s – Mike O’. Priceless. I guess I got all of my heavy partying done at an early age when I was at Maximum Cuteness and could dance all night long and then go to school. Some of my friends got married early and now they are partying hard. I can’t keep up these days. I don’t even know what the good clubs in DC are anymore. I used to hit as many as 4 per night. Pathetic.

Yada yada….

Ok, so once on lock-down, I watch all my crime shows on Direct TV; like Dr. G Medical Examiner, Forensic Files, and CSI. I also got into what my mother refers to as “the freak shows” (this is so wrong – bear with me): They have all kinds of programs on people with deformities. [It is because I don’t want to go to hell (for this) that I won’t go into too much detail. Little people. People without faces. Stuff like that.] Ok, then they have the baby shows like “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant” (mostly about women who didn’t have a clue and then ended up delivering a baby in the toilet); and “16 and Pregnant” (self-explanatory); and “Delivery Me” (just about delivering babies in general). Why is this stuff so fascinating to people? I don’t get it. What’s next, “Vicious Bowel Movements”? Oh, and the "Real Wives of (NY, NJ, and Atlanta)" Addictive train wrecks.

I digress more and more.

Anyhoo, I loved being with my family. My nephew is at that cool age where everything is new and an adventure. I drove back with him and 2 of his friends from the Outer Banks to Virginia; a 6-hour drive. I stopped at Cracker Barrel for fried chicken. Cracker Barrel: Where you will only find greenery in the pattern of their wallpaper. That’s just plain good ole southern cooking: biscuits, cornbread and gravy! I made the teenage boys eat a whole lot of heavy food so they would fall asleep on the ride back and then I could scare the bejeezus out of them by slamming on the breaks or screaming every 15 to 20 minutes as if we were careening off a cliff. I scream loud enough to have them all slamming themselves up against the car windows in fear. Good times. Good times. They wouldn't get that from a ride home with my sister.

I can’t believe how much I actually did while I was there. I was so busy all the time. My mother keeps a detailed journal of what she does every day. I’m going to have to ask her for a cheat sheet because I can’t remember. I love doing things with her – even though she is my moms and occasionally drives me nuts. Just makes me understand how fast time passes and how precious time with your family is.

Segue.

My sister has no ass. She had a bit of an ass before, but it appears to have fallen off. She also has a completely flat (Mashallah) stomach. She attributes it to Sean T’s Hip Hop Abs. I have determined that I really don’t want to go to a gym and be surrounded by sweaty people who have the potential of staring at my (oversized) ass. It’s not for me. I don’t want to pay several hundred KD to join a place that I probably won’t go to all the time; and may be pissed off at when I do. I LOVE Hip Hop Ab DVDs! They are amazing. I hate doing floor crunches (so I just don’t – which explains how I DON’T have a flat stomach) and this is so cool because you are doing standing crunches. I have had insomnia since I got back so I was wide awake at 4 am and decided to do them. Instant energy. I love it. I’ll let you know how it goes. I don’t eat much really and I’m more likely to make myself fish for dinner than having junk food, so it is really down to the exercise. My sister is so cool for turning me onto the DVDs. She’s been into fitness for a very long time and it shows; she looks amazing.

I tried to go walking with my sister after dinner over there (she’s an amazing cook), but the apache mosquitoes got me bigtime. I’m not kidding – I have welts. It’s not a pretty look. The bastards even got my kneecaps! Kneecapped by the mosquito mafia! This year, there were lots of ads around for a mosquito repellant that is a clip-on fan that disburses repellant in a bubble around you. That’s so cool. Of course, the ads were so convincing that none of the retailers I went to (and there were a lot) could keep them on the shelf. I finally bought some Off and my nephew thought it was perfume. “Wow… what perfume are you wearing? I think that girl (which is what he calls his girlfriend) wears that… I like it.” Oh yeah? Your girl wears bug spray when she comes to see you? That should be telling you something dude. That’s just wrong.

The weather in Virginia was pretty hot, but everything was so green and beautiful. I forget how gorgeous it all is when I’m here and then when I go back, I just stare out the window with my mouth agape. I know what you’re thinking – either that “dumb blonde” look or that I just look mentally challenged, right? Yeah, pretty much. No, I don’t do drugs although after coming back here, I believe that they would really help me.

Here was my biggest fear about returning to Kuwait: The heat sensors for swine flu at the Kuwait airport. After an extended period of celibacy, I wondered if perhaps my private parts would be hot enough to glow on the screen and embarrass me. They didn’t, but it was one of those irrational (rational?) fears.

I couldn’t believe how long the lines were in Kuwait customs. And let me axe you this: How come none of the Kuwaiti customs people ever cracks a smile or even has something pleasant to say? They are the way Dubai customs agents USED to be before they got customer relations training and realized that hey – people are coming to your country and perhaps you might be a little welcoming as initial points of contact/ambassadors of your homeland. Show some Arab hospitality! These guys treated everyone in line – regardless of their nationality – like they were pariah. I know they have a difficult job, but a bad attitude makes it so much worse. I always say, “Salam Alaykum” and these guys (and sometimes gals) don’t even answer. I end up answering myself. What is WRONG with people? I used to be treated much better before all the other Americans came to Kuwait and ruined it for me. People used to talk to me and asked me where I worked and were very nice. I enjoyed being a novelty. Now I’m just ordinary. That’s no good. Ordinary doesn’t work for me. (Okay, neither does short bus, but you get my meaning.) On my previous post, a comment was made about how hard it is to get through US Customs and I agree – it is mostly a pain in the ass – but at least once you speak to one of the representatives, they generally at least speak to you (of any nationality) and make eye contact instead of GRUNTING. “Me caveman. Me stamp you passport. Ug ug.”

I enjoyed seeing how many tards in the airport were wearing masks as a deterrent to the flu. I giggle. Nothing funnier than a bio mask and a long beard. That just screams for me to run up and start coughing near them.

When are they going to expand Kuwait airport? It’s hell and its not like you can drive to another airport to catch a flight.

Bobarino is so funny. He arrived a few days before I did and he wanted a few more days off work, so he called in and said that he had “flu-like symptoms”. Easy pass to 3 days off. If he could only use his powers for good instead of evil. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. Maybe I should have come to work wearing a mask and coughing, “Don’t want to make any of my co-workers sick….”

Seriously, I’m much more likely to catch something life-threatening from the women’s bathroom here at work than swine flu. Our cleaning guy literally sprays the entire stall with water that he’s used from the hose next to the toilet (the butt hose) and then pushes the water around with a squeegee. You will NEVER find a squeegee in my home; I banned them. ICK. Don’t they have any clue how much bacteria can thrive in even one drop of water in the bathroom? Especially water from a hose that has been within inches of so many butts! YUUUUUUUK.

I digress. As usual.

Movies: If you haven’t seen “The Hangover” – go and get a bootleg copy RIGHT FRICKIN NOW. It is the most hilarious movie I have seen in a very long time. I loved it. What not to see (unless you are into poorly made Ron Jeremy gay porn): Bruno (Sacha Cohen). We walked out. It was non-stop senseless, vulgar, disgusting gay sexual scenes. It was abso-frickin-lutely the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life.

Did you hear about that guy in Saudi Arabia who talked openly about his sex life on LBC and the Saudis arrested him? LINK That’s clearly messed up. Saudis don’t have sex out of wedlock! Noooooooo. They don’t drink either. Everybody knows that. Why would he lie like that? Shameful.

I think I have run out of things to talk about right now. I feel as though I have covered pretty much of everything rolling around inside my head. I know I will be totally useless for the next few days (at least!). So it is almost Ramadan - my favorite time of the year for mahem and corruption.