Same Stuff. DIfferent Results.

Same Stuff.  Different Results.  

The giant blue wheel spun slower as it wound down; the ClickClickClickClickClick lurched into a lingering Click..Click…..Click……...Click…….…..Click.  Jacob’s wrinkly 100-dollar bill stared up at us from the green felt table, and I glanced over at him and Andy.  Andy grimaced and tightened his shoulders; he urged the wheel along silently with focused eyes.  To his left, Jacob leaned out over the table with a wide-mouthed smile and negotiated his terms with the wheel.


“Come on, you asshole wheel!  Keep spinning.  17! 17!”  Not the kind of person to slough off a Benjamin to a spinning wheel without at least making a scene first, Jacob teased it over the harmonious beeps and tings of slot machines.  


Depending on where the flimsy white arrow was pointing when the wheel stopped, the three of us were either going to be physiologically gutted, or we were going to have our vibes elevated to dangerous levels.  I did some on-the-spot calculations, and it seemed to me that the wheel was headed for a number between 14-25.  


“Come on 17!” Andy told the wheel through clinched teeth.


The game was risky and quick – a perfectly seductive pair for my younger brother, Jacob.  It worked like this: a player could bet any amount of money over $10 on any number between 1 and 50 and, when the wheel stopped spinning, if the arrow pointed to that number, the house paid out 20:1.  If the arrow stopped on 17, Jacob would have ten thousand bones in his pocket.  


Click6……Click7…………Click8………..


I’m replaying this Vegas trip on the screen in my mind as I survey the Egyptian vendor, clad in Armani, punching numbers into his calculator behind the desk at the Arabian perfumery.  His store is in the bustling city center of Al Ain where I’ve been wandering, void of any particular destination, tonight.  This “Arabian Oud,” as it’s called, is where my wanderlust has landed my body.  But my mind has a sense of wanderlust all its own.  


His spindly brown fingers click away at numbers on his calculator, and I suppose it’s the clicking and the numbers that have my mind wandering back to Vegas.  He turns the face of his calculator around to show me the total cost, and I place a 500 Dirham bill on the table.


“Very good, this oil.” He says in his mangled English, as he folds the bill and places it in the drawer.  “Each man who put on, he smell different.  Depend on body.  You and brother both put on and in one hour you both smell different. Your brother will like.  Same stuff.  Different results. Depend on person.”


Same stuff.  Different results.  His sales pitch will be ringing in my mind later.


“I hope so,” I tell him.  I’ve let the Egyptian dab a bit of the oil on my wrist, and the leathery odor is still strong and not necessarily pleasant on me.  


I decided on this sandal wood oil, as Jacob’s birthday gift, because I reckoned it’d be just the kind of thing he’d dig.  It’s unusual, brash, and unapologetically weird – just like he is.  So I’ve wandered into this store and decided to procure a couple bottles and send them to him back to the States.  


The oil comes in a tiny clear container (about the size and shape of the coke-bottle chewy candies we used to buy as kids) and has yellowy viscosity to it.   Arab men rub it into their wrists and, after the abrasive leather smell wears off in an hour or so, it begins to work with the body’s natural skin oils to create an exotic and personalized fragrance. It manifests itself differently on different people, according to each person’s body chemistry.

“Your brother in America,” says the Egyptian.  He is same-same like you?”


“No,” I tell him.  “He is very different.  Not same-same.”  


“Why different? How?”


Never were our differences more pronounced than in Vegas.  I’d spent the day wandering about the gaudy carpeted floors with Andy, leaking out my cash $3-5 at a time.  Dollar slots.  Five-dollar black jack.  Four-dollar beers.  In my typical play-it-safe fashion, I’d managed to let a couple hundred dollars trickle out of my wallet without ever creating a buzz for myself.  Steadily and safely, I’d managed to drum up a dreadfully uneventful day of losing in the world’s most exciting city.  Jacob, on the other hand, whipped up a Vegas buzz as soon as he stepped foot on the ornate casino floor. 


Click9…….Click10…….. I tried to charm the wheel into submission, Come on, wheel… any prime number between 14 and 18 will do, while Jacob bent out over the table and beamed his wide-mouthed smile.  


And that’s what I have always admired about my younger brother.  While I was born with an innate timidity, he was born hell-bent on a buzz.  It’s just his nature.  There’s nothing moderate about him.  He used to say he was going to get a tattoo of some dice rolling out over four aces under the caption, “I’m all in.”  It’s a perfect summation of his character, and oddly enough, it’s the only tattoo he’s ever talked about getting and failed to follow through with.   


Whether it is practicing guitar for hours each night, growing his hair all the way down to the small of his back, or training twice a day at a gym and chizzling everything out of his diet save protein shakes and beer, Jacob never half-asses anything. He is, as his hypothetical tat says, All In.  


“He is more old or you are more old?” The Egyptian vendor asks.  


“He’s Younger.  Almost 3 years younger.” I answer, as the vendor puts the gift in decorative boxes and carefully places them in a bag.  


Even though Jacob is younger than I am, I’ve always done a good deal of looking up to him. If he could mix up his adventurous spirit and his predilection for risk taking and package it in a little bottle, I’d snatch it up for myself, no matter what the cost.  


And in many ways, I think I have dabbed a bit of his personality on me, although, like the sandal wood oil, it manifests itself differently on me than it does on him. 


Click11..……..Click12.…….As the wheel dawdled closer to 17, Jacob, Andy, and I chanted in unison.  “Seventeen. Seventeen. Seventeen.”  All three of us took our eyes off of the wheel at the same moment and glanced at each other, as if somehow we all realized simultaneously that we were having one of life’s great “moments.”


This $100 bet wasn’t the first time I’d seen Jacob do something that most people would consider careless with his money.   When we were in college and playing in a band together, Jacob decided to purchase a full-sized conversion van with the money that was supposed to get him through college.  Mom and Dad urged him not to buy it.  The purchase was, according to them, a stupid idea.  An irresponsible acquisition.  The kind of thing one does when one lacks mental fortitude. But Jacob was driven and convicted by something inside of him. 


We customized the ‘98 Ford F-350 with a skull and crossbones decal and some band stickers and began touring.  As much as I enjoyed it at the time, the rock and roll lifestyle wasn’t really in my nature.  I knew I probably couldn’t do it forever.  But for Jacob, rock and roll was a most natural thing.  It was like watching a fish in water to see him with his long hair, sleeve of tats, and a guitar in hand. The big parties and swooning girls and loud music were second nature to him.  Even though I enjoyed it, I felt a bit more like a fish on a bicycle.  


Our folks questioned his decisions, but opposing authority was also instinctive for him.  When we were children, our mother would tell us both to make our beds every morning before school. I couldn’t understand why, but I did it anyway because I found it easier than arguing.  Jacob, on the other hand, refused.  


“Why?!  I’m just going to mess it up again tonight!”  He’d argue over the top of a book he’d be reading.  Mom would inevitably threaten him with grounding, to which he’d reply, “I don’t care if you ground me, I’m not making my bed. That’s stupid.  It’s a waste of time.”  


As if long hair, messy beds, and ill-conceived van purchases didn’t restrict my folks’ capacity for doting on their son enough, Jacob made plenty of other decisions that showed a distinct lack of “foresight,” as our parents would say.  At 18 years old, as a freshman in college, Jacob walked into a tattoo parlor and got himself inked with his first of many tattoos. 


Granted, it wasn’t huge – just a script that wrapped around his wrist and said, in thick black letters, “Never ever give up.”  Still, I was astonished.  He was the first person I knew well to delve into the world of uncoverable tattoos.  Mom and Dad grumbled their disapproval, but Jacob never retreated from confrontation with them or with anyone else.  He knew what he wanted to do and he did it. 


He lived on a perpetual buzz of his own creation.  So I knew, 7 years and a sleeve of tattoos later, when he dialed me up and invited me to come out to Vegas, that it would be a memorable trip.  Especially now that he had moved on from playing in a small band with me to touring with an internationally acclaimed band and performing in sold out arenas.  


“Yo,” he said when I answered his phone call, “You’ve got to recruit Andy and get out to Vegas next month.  I know you’ve got work and all, but take some days off. It’s going to be dope.  Rev Theory is shooting a video for the new record and we’ve got the Exotic Suite at the top of the Palm. So how about the Showalter Bros and Andy in Las Vegas, VIP style? We’ll do some relaxing, we’ll do some partying, we’ll do some gamblin’…”


I’d seen a Travel Channel special on the very suite he was talking about the week before.  The show boasted the world’s top 10 most lavish hotel rooms.  Number 7 on the list was the Exotic Suite at the top of the Palm in Vegas. 


“Are you serious? “  I said.  “I’m all in.”


Click13………The arrow clicked closer and closer to landing on the 17 that would put ten grand in Jacob’s pocket.  As the wheel dragged slowly across each number the three of us jumped up and down and yelled at it.  Go Go Go!


How did my brother, who was cut from the same genes and raised by the same parents as I was, find himself playing guitar for an internationally acclaimed rock band, shooting a video in Vegas, and raging atop the Palm in a $10,000 a night suite?  


I think it had something to do with his tendency to go All In. Couple that with a dab of Never Ever Give Up, and you’ve got a recipe for adventure.  And that’s what I’ve been learning from him my whole life. How to go all in, and never ever give up, even when it looks like the wheel won’t land on your number.  Hell, even if the wheel doesn’t land on your number, at least you did something adventurous and put yourself in a position to win big or lose big. And that’s what makes life interesting.  


In fact, when I think about how safe and boring my life might have played out had Jacob not been there to model risk taking and conviction, I feel ill. If it weren't for him showing me how to stick to my guns regardless of people's advice, I can imagine myself in a collared-polo shirt eeking out an existence working a boring job in a place where I’m dreadfully comfortable.  Without his influence, I never would have been able to experience all the great things I’ve experienced as a result of being a little more Jacob-like, a little more I’m All In and a little more Never Ever Give Up.


Click15…………………..The man who was running the game shot glances back and forth between the spinning wheel and the three blokes cheering it on. I started to feel unsure about the bet, though.  It didn’t look as if the wheel had enough speed to get to 17.  My initial enthusiasm at Jacob’s risky bet morphed into second thoughts.  God, that’s a lot of money to waste on one spin of a wheel, I thought.  


And back at the Perfumery, I’m starting to have second thoughts about the sandal wood oil I’ve purchased.  It still smells heavy and leathery.  “You’re sure this is a good one?” I ask the Egyptian, as he hands me the receipt and the bag.


“Wallah” he says.  (I swear to Allah).  “Same stuff, different results for different peoples.  Maybe smell funny now but good later. Maybe it smell good on brother and not same as you.”


Same stuff.  Different results. 


I think about how all of my life I’ve been taking cues from Jacob and trying out his approach to life, even if it’s against my nature.  I’ve been trying his stuff. I didn’t get the chance to play sold out arenas like he did.  I will probably never let $100 ride on the spin of a wheel.   But I have had a storied life, and all of the stories come from doing what Jacob would do.  The results are sure different, but I’m using the same stuff.


Adopting Jacob’s unique approach to life helped me carve the life paths that I’m most proud of.  I’m certain that, were it not for Jacob’s influence, I would have never moved to this part of the world and had the chance to chat up this Egyptian vendor in the first place.  It took a good bit of I’m All In and Never Ever Give Up for me to get to this new stage in my life. 


I think about how I had to be All In and Never Ever Give Up to finish the solo record I recorded last year.  I think about how I had to be All In and Never Ever Give Up to become the kind of English teacher I am now.  I think about the last trick I stuck on my wakeboard, and how much commitment and tenacity that took. The list goes on.


Same stuff.  Different results. 


“Your brother will love it the oil, Wallah.  No disappointed.”


I smile, thank the man for his help, and walk out of the store carrying a bag and thinking about my brother and about how nothing I could buy him would ever pay him back for what I’ve learned from him.  By the time I get to my car, the oil smells great on me. A sweet, interesting smell - it’s worked with my natural body chemistry to create a scent, almost like honey, that is uniquely mine.


Back in Vegas, the three of us leaned out over the table and gazed at the wheel.  Keep!  Going!  Wheel!  Come ON! 17! But it didn’t.  The wheel stopped on 15 – just two numbers shy of a huge payout.  I watched the man behind the counter scrape Jacob’s hundred-dollar bill into a sealed box. I sneered at it while my stomach descended into my legs. 


Jacob's smile barely budged.  "You've gotta play big to win big, eh?  Now, who wants a drink?"


And he was right.  It didn't matter that he'd lost.  What mattered was that he took a risk and had an adventure (even if the duration of the adventure was just the time it took for a wheel to rotate a few times).  What mattered was that now the three of us had a great story.  What mattered was that he put himself into a position to win big or lose big, and that’s where life smells the sweetest.   


Sandalwood oil smells differently on each person, but inevitably it makes each person smell better.  And that’s what Jacob’s approach to life does.  It mingles with your unique chemistry and brings out the best in you.  It keeps life smelling sweet and interesting.  


It doesn’t come in a bottle, but that risk taking, adventurous, all-in approach to life is good stuff, so long as you Never Ever Give Up.  Sure, I became a teacher and an acoustic guitarist instead of getting covered in tats and living like a rock star.  Yes, I am still slightly cautious with money, and I will probably never throw down a hundred dollars on the spin of a wheel.  I’ll never buy a van with my college funds, and I’ll be damned if I don’t still make my bed every morning. 


But because I've mirrored Jacob’s enthusiasm, conviction, and riskiness, I've had some great adventures and seen success in the things that I do – and that's something my innate timidity would have kept from me.  


Same stuff.  Different results.  

Weird-O-Meter

Mine is Broken

“Did you see the accident?” Leah asks calmly, as I put the car in reverse and very carefully back out into the street.

“Just an almost accident. What happened in the real accident?” 

“You know how the high school boys fishtail their SUVs and peel out all over town after school,” she says matter-of-factly as she peels off her extra layers of clothing and her headscarf.  “Well, they were all doing that in front of the girls school and one of the guys lost control.  His tire popped off and he hit a sign.”

“Is he alright?”

“Yeah, he just jumped out of his new Land Cruiser laughing.  Then he hopped into someone else’s SUV and off they went – fishtailing down the road.  They left his car just sitting there with three wheels.” The way she tells me this story is the way you would tell someone about your preferred brand of dish detergent.  Blasé. 

“That’s weird right?”  I ask.  “You just told that story like it was a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence.  But that’s weird right?”

“Well, it would be weird if we didn’t see this kind of shit every day.”

 _____

Nothing strikes me as odd anymore.  My gauge for weirdness is broken.  I used to have something of a weirdness thermometer.  The red mercury inside would rise and fall in accordance with the weirdness of things around me.  That thing is broken, and this is how I know:

Minutes before Leah joined me, I was waiting for her in my car.   I was sitting alone, biting at a loose piece of skin near my thumbnail to pass the time, when a massive white Lexus SUV slammed into the parking spot adjacent mine and laid on the horn.  A couple of nomadic chickens lifted their heads up from the sand they were pecking at to appraise the ruckus.

While the sound of the horn was still wafting heavily over the endless sand dunes beyond the grocery store, a tinted window slowly descended, revealing an Emirate man wearing mirrored Cavali aviators and a perfectly sculpted five o’clock shadow.  He laughed heartily into the Mobile Blackberry pressed against his temple, then honked again.  A squatty little Indian man responded to the demanding honk by hastily waddling out of the grocery store to attend to his customer.

If you were to see a pair of $1000 aviators on a man in an $80,000 vehicle at a podunk grocery store in the middle of the desert, you might think it weird.  Six months ago, the red mercury in my weirdness thermometer would have risen as well.  Now it doesn't phase me.

The little Indian chap was still a couple car lengths’ shy of reaching the menacing Emirate when he barked a guttural Arabic command from his open window.  These abrasive instructions to the Indian, which I assume deafened the person on the other end of the phone line, turned the grocer 180 degrees in his tattered sandals, and he ran back towards his store.  You might be wondering who this rich guy is that doesn’t even have to get out of his vehicle to get his provisions.   It wasn’t even weird enough to distract me from the loose flap of skin on my thumb.

There was a plastic drape whipping around in hot wind where the front door to the store should have been, and just before the Indian feller hobbled through it, he turned and looked at me as if to say, I’ll take your order as soon as I help this guy who is obviously much richer and more impatient than you.

Soon, he emerged from behind the plastic doorway with a bottle of water and a cold can of Mountain Dew, which he promptly delivered to the posh-looking Arab in exchange for a couple wadded bills. Transaction complete, the window on the glimmering white Lexus glided back up; this was obviously not their first transaction of this nature. 

The Emirate driver jammed his Lexus into reverse, and without even a casual glance at his rearview, peeled out backwards into the street – his Blackberry still tight against his ear.  I watched indifferently as I continued to work the pesky skin flap between my teeth.

Before this guy’s back tires could make contact with the road behind us, a giant white Toyota Land Cruiser screamed towards him honking and swerving to miss the Lexus.  The two of them avoided an SUV demolition derby by about the width of a Blackberry phone, but the only ones taking notice were the handful of nomadic chickens pecking about.  The Emirate simply reached up and scratched his nose with his left hand and continued to back out, laughing into his mobile all the while. 

The screaming horn brought the Indian chap back to the threshold of his store to assess the situation.  He and the chickens gazed blankly while the Lexus driver, again without checking his rearview, peeled out into the street. 

Meanwhile, the annoying skin on my thumb had been amputated, and Leah still hadn’t made it to the car, so I decided I’d see what the chickens and the Indian were watching. 

All of us - Indian, chickens, and I - watched as the SUV rolled exactly one block and then pulled up next to a puny villa about the size of a trailer home.  The plaster on the side of the home was flaking off, and plastic bags and empty Mountain Dew cans littered the unkempt sand yard.  He killed the engine, stepped out of the Lexus, and strolled into the shack, water and Dew in toe.

Perhaps it strikes you as strange that a man living in this kind of home rocks a pair of four-figure sunnies and drives a Lexus.  My weirdness gauge didn’t budge. Perhaps you find it peculiar that he would drive a car one block instead of just walking.  Eh - normal.

The wandering chickens, presumably satisfied that there was nothing left to see, returned to their pecking.  The squalid little grocer who was still standing in the plastic-flap doorway turned his head, waved his arms, and yelled something at them.  They scattered a few steps, but then returned to their pecking.  The squatty Indian grocer wadded up the bills he'd just received, stuffed them into his pocket, and made his way over towards my car.

I cracked the window and spoke deliberately and slowly in hopes that he might understand some English. “I. Don’t. Need. Anything. Thanks.”

“EHH!”  He responded. 

EHH! I've come to learn is the universal term for I have no idea what you’re saying, but let’s bumble through a conversation with hand motions and a linguistic concoction of English/Arabic/Indian.  As he inched his way towards my car, I decided I liked this guy, if only because his blackish skin and small, white button-down shirt made him look a bit penguinish.

I waved both my hands in front of my face and smiled.  I tried broken Arabic. “La La La, Mafi Ordeed.”

He shrugged his shoulders and wrinkled his forehead.  “EHH!” Either I didn't speak good Arabic, or he didn't understand Arabic.  I rattled my head in the east and west direction hoping a simple no gesture would do.  He stood his ground at my window.  Not knowing how else to tell him that I wasn’t interested in buying anything, I turned the key, rolled the window up, and stared straight ahead, effectually ignoring him. 

Is that a weird thing to do?  Maybe six months ago it would have struck me as patently weird.  Now, it didn’t even register on my weirdness gauge. 

My penguin Indian friend, however, clearly found the situation weird. 

He was wondering, of course, why I was sitting alone in the parking lot to his grocery store if I didn’t need anything from said grocery store.  After all, his business is on the edge of town in rural Al Wagan - a small, decrepit Bedouin village jutting out from a sea of sand dunes where age-old tribes adhere to conservative Islamic values.  There’s no reason for a blonde white guy to be in that town at all.  There’s even less of a reason for a blonde white guy to be in that particular town sitting in a parking lot of a grocery store if he doesn’t need any groceries.

As I assessed this bizarre scene from my penguin-looking friend's perspective, I suddenly realized that the weird thing about all this was that, so far, none of this had struck me as weird.  But what else could I do?  I couldn’t leave without Leah, and we had agreed to meet in this little parking lot.

The grocer waddled into my line of sight out in front of the windshield and gave me a hearty scoff and shoulder shrug.  He offered up his final EHH - but this time punctuated it with a question mark. 

“EHH?” Then he harrumphed himself back through his plastic flap and into his store.

I didn’t speak his language, but I definitely understood his question. EHH? meant Why? Why was I here?  What was I doing?  It was all very weird for him.

And maybe the whole scenario should have registered atop my weird-gauge too.  After all, what I was doing in this man’s parking lot was essentially hiding.  I had to pick up Leah and take her back to the city where we share an apartment building, but I couldn’t pick her up at her school because we are mandated to respect the local culture and values in Al Wagan – one of those values being that an unmarried woman should never be in a car with a man unless it’s her father or brother. 

It’s not illegal to ride coed, and it’s not even taboo in the cities like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or my hometown of Al Ain.  But out here in the desert town of Al Wagan, the place where I spend my workdays, a coed car ride shared by unmarried teachers could really ruffle some feathers.  Nomadic chickens and otherwise.

And that’s weird right?  Six months ago, before I had lived in this country – it would have been.  Now, it doesn’t even register on my weirdness gauge.

Without any loose thumb-skin to keep me occupied, I began to look around with my six-months-ago-Adam-eyes to see what else should be registering on my weirdness gauge.

That’s when it occurred to me that unfenced chickens wandering around town are weird.    

I looked up to see what the chickens were getting up to now that all the excitement had dwindled.  They seemed to have exhausted their hopes of finding food in the sand near the store, and they were wobbling off in the other direction. I watched them in my rearview mirror as they venture out into the empty street, and I wondered, perhaps as homage to the old joke, why the chickens were crossing the road.  

Once they arrived safely on the proverbial other side they shuffled up to a fence line near a lean-to hut fashioned from old brown palm branches; there, they roosted in the shade of the glossy black 2012 BMW that was parked next to the make-shift dwelling. 

Wait, I thought, a shiny black 2012 BMW parked in the sand driveway of a makeshift Bedouin hut?  How did I not notice this juxtaposition before?  Presumably the same man who operates this rickety chicken farm fashioned out of rotting palm branches owns a brand new German-import luxury vehicle.  This should have sent the mercury in my weirdometer rising long ago. I had seen it as I pulled up.  I just hadn't noticed it.  There's a difference.  But I had to forgive myself.  Luxury vehicles are as common here as palm trees - even out in the middle of the desert.

Six months ago, seeing a man refuse to leave the comfort of his vehicle to purchase a bottled water and Mountain Dew would have struck me as weird.  I would have assumed he must be someone with fame or political sway. Six months ago I would have expected someone who could afford $1000 shades and a Lexus to live in a place that doesn’t resemble a Bedouin Boo Radley’s house.   But now, six months later, nothing seems weird. 

Suddenly aware of the infinite weirdness around me, I began to wonder what else I’d missed – what else would have registered high on the weird gauge for six-months-ago Adam. The chickens.  The out-of-place wealth.  The gender rules.

I had inadvertently reengaged my weirdness gauge, and suddenly a world that I had grown accustomed to looked and felt weird.  I felt wobbly.  Unstable.  I needed something normal, and just then, Leah opened the passenger door.

“Did you see the accident?” She asked, as I put the car in reverse and very carefully backed out into the street.

I drove us towards home while she peeled away the superfluous layers of Muslim-approved clothing that she's required to wear to work, and as we sped by her school, she pointed her finger out the window towards a Land Cruiser that was twisted around a stop sign.  “Look over there.” 

Amongst the wreckage was a renegade tire that had rolled about 20 yards from the accident. It was the very scene she had described to me.

“And he was laughing when he got out?” I asked.

“Yeah.  You know, he’ll probably get a new SUV tomorrow.” 

I flashed back to a conversation I had with an Arabic colleague on my first day of school.  What, I asked him, do the kids do for fun around here?  And in the tone you might use to explain your preferred brand of detergent, he explained that they wrecked their cars.    


At first I thought he was joking, so I smiled and waited for him to reveal the truth.  No really, he said, they try to flip their SUVs.

And you know what I said to him?  I said, "Weird."

Now I've been here for six months, nothing strikes me as weird except how much my definition of weirdness has changed. 

_____

I spent the last couple of days trying to look at my current world through my old eyes to see what kind of weirdness I’m considering normal now.  Here is a list of things that happened in just a few days that no longer cause me to raise an eyebrow.  In fact, if I hadn't started writing this particular blog, I wouldn't have recognized them as being even a bit peculiar.  My definition of weird apparently has a bit of elasticity to it.

1. I was driving next to a rickety truck with a camel in the back when a Porche whizzed by on the shoulder of the highway at well over 200 miles per hour. (Normal here)
2.  I asked a security guard at my school to kindly unlock the gate so that I could get to the restroom. (Yes, our school has prison gates) When he unlocked the gate, six students jumped out of a closet nearby and escaped the school (Not an everyday occurrence at my school - an every couple hours occurrence.)  
3.  I counted three Bentley’s sitting in the driveway at the mansion across from my apartment.  (Sometimes there are 4)
4. I gingerly bumped noses with my entire class as they left, on purpose. (Formal Emirate greeting)
5. I parked my Hyundai between a Ferrari and a Mercedes. (The next car over was a Jaguar.)
6. I played the song Amazing Grace on my harmonica to a class full of Muslim kids and they went nuts for it.  (I'd exhausted my entire repertoire - Amazing Grace was the only thing I knew that I hadn't played yet.)
7. I hitched a ride with a student.  If that's not weird to you, then this will be. Before he would let me out of his brand new Land Rover, he insisted on dousing me with a bottle of Arabian Oud.  A bottle of this stuff runs just under $1,000 USD.  The bottle is about the size of a cigarette lighter.
8. I poured camel milk over my cereal. (Got camel?)
9. A student who speaks exactly zero English stood up, unannounced, and tried to impress me with his English skills by singing the song Mr Boombastic in its entirety during the middle of class. (He sounded just like Shaggy with an Arabic accent.  All my students think Shaggy is the bee's knees.)
10. I checked on hotel prices at the Burj Al Arab.  $2,400 USD per night.  I briefly considered seeing if any of my friends wanted to throw in and try it out. (It's on a man-made island in the middle of the Sea.  They fly you out to it in a helicopter. My weird-o-meter might be broke, but this country sure isn't.)
11. I paused at the grocery store to decide between buying regular chicken eggs or quail eggs. (You can also buy dove at the grocery store - not the facial soap, the bird.)
12. I read the word خروج and it made sense to me. (Arabic for Exit - pronounced like you're hawking a loogie, twice)
13. I conducted an entire class while sitting cross-legged on the floor.  (I was also shoeless)
14. My students encouraged me to pray in school and tried to drag me to the Mosque. 
15. I realized that if these scenarios are no longer weird to me, America will be weird to me.  

_____

In a land where the Bedouin went from nomadic desert wanderers to the richest people on earth in a span of 50 years, there's bound to be some strangeness.  Is it weird?  Well, to quote Leah, "It would be weird if we didn't see this kind of shit every day."