Still a Better Love Story Than Twilight

He pulled up at a traffic light. Well, you wouldn't call it a traffic light... more like a traffic free-for-all...

He lived in Egypt, you see. Egypt spits on your puny mortal "traffic lights". And whenever there happen to be traffic lights, they're more of a guideline than actual traffic control, followed only by foreigners who haven't been Egyptianized yet; fussy moms and old people.. but I digress. The point is, he was on his way to work as usual, but had neglected to sacrifice to the ancient Egyptian God of traffic "Amon-Shorta" (only Egyptians will get this joke), and lo and behold he was already two hours late. 

It was one of these days where everything goes wrong; alarm doesn't go off, nothing to eat in the fridge, spending half an hour ironing a stubbornly crinkled shirt that looks like it was dragged through the Vietnam war.. which is ironic, because he ended up burning a hole right through the sleeve and having to iron another shirt instead. "Ain't bachelor life grand?" he thought, as he frantically looked for the keys that were in his pocket and the glasses he was already wearing while simultaneously hopping on one foot trying to wear a sock on his other foot, stumbling over his shoes, and falling face-first into a box of left-over pizza from three days ago he kept forgetting to throw out.

Rushing out of the house with small crumbs of pizza crust stuck in his beard, he realized he forgot to wear his shoes and rushed back in again furiously cursing in his most colorful profanities at no one in particular. When he was finally out of the house, already half an hour late and looking about as sharp as a spoon or a particularly dull butter knife, he was greeted by the sight of the bawab (or janitor/security guard/morality police/delivery guy/garage caretaker combo, for all non-Egyptians) who had just covered his car in soap. Ironically, the bawab assumed that because the protagonist (let's call him Mahmoud) was so late, he'd decided to skip work altogether so it was a good time to wash his car. 

Mahmoud, being as polite as the British, more hot-tempered than an Italian mobster from Sicily who's just watched his sister get whistled at by a mobster from another family (also smarter than a German nuclear physicist and hotter than Brad Pitt and awesome at making huge drawn-out similes and currently single, ladies ;) ) had to fight the urge to throttle the bawab for having such a brilliant deductive mind that led him to the conclusion that because he was late it made sense to make him even more late, because of reasons. Instead, he wore a forced smile and thanked the bawab while inwardly wishing him and his family a painful death by anal sodomy, asked him to rinse off his car, and drove out of the garage all fast-and-furious-like at 70 kph (requiring considerable skill at maneuvering, if I might add) with heavy rock playing on his radio, only to get stuck in a traffic jam immediately outside.

Days went by; seasons changed; Kanye West and Kim Kardashian had a baby they named "North" in an act of complete dickery bordering on child-abuse; a nuclear Armageddon wiped out 99% of the human race; and still he found himself slumped in his car in heavy traffic, having shout-outs with people who cut him off and thinking longingly of death while his iPod shuffle tortured him with extremely ironic songs like "Happy" and "Highway to Hell". It was a mark of how terrible his mood was that when he saw one of the 3 pile-ups on the Ring Road that day, he caught himself inwardly wishing he'd been in one of them.

"Aaaaand of course", he thought; that today of all days would be the day he would receive 12 emails when it wasn't even 10 30 yet; all requiring his urgent attention.. and what worst-case-scenario-nightmare would it be, without his boss calling him 5 times to ask him where he was, his voice gradually rising from phone call to phone call -ranging in pitch from his carefully-cultivated, shareholder-reassuring, calm baritone to a high-pitched squeak you'd expect from a rat whose tail you stepped on- as he hoarsely yelled about corporate policy and how employees should always make sure to be at work before noon and how he didn't care about traffic jams or Armageddons or the environment or murdered kittens.

I'm not sure if you can tell, but he wasn't having a nice day.

It was while he was seriously beginning to consider getting out of his car and just running to work that he noticed her in his side-view mirror... 

She was eating a sandwich and chain-smoking while yelling at the guy riding shotgun, spittle flying out of her mouth and coating his poor sweat (and now spittle)-drenched face as he cowered for cover from his 50-year old obese mother's pastrami rain of death- wait no, this isn't her, you pervs.. the other car, beside it.

Yes, that one.

In stark contrast to the typical Egyptian ma7shi-fuelled machine of hatred and despair mentioned above, she was simply beautiful (yes, now it's time for the sappy part, I'm a hopeless romantic, deal with it).

She was wearing the most elegant bored face of all-time. Taken out of context, you couldn't tell she was even bored at all... He looked at his face in the rear-view mirror, and saw the face of a middle-aged man who had curiously grown some more white hairs than earlier that morning, and suddenly noticed the pizza crumbs in his beard. He casually brushed them off while pretending to stroke his beard thoughtfully, hoping to convey an era of wisdom rather than misery and self-loathing. Tired of looking at his milk-curdling frown, he looked at her again and immediately felt better. The world was still a beautiful place if such an angelic face was still possible to exist.. in that miserable setting, most of all.

Her wavy blonde curls were elegantly sparkling in the early morning sun. You could tell that she didn't have time to do whatever it is girls do to their hair when they wake up in the morning -maybe she'd rushed out of the house as late as he was- but somehow he doubted that she could have done anything more to make it look any better. That girl could wake up in the morning and go straight to a fancy fund-raiser without even running a comb through her hair, and it gave her a low-maintenance vibe that somehow made her even more attractive than any carefully-polished trophy wife could ever be. 

He must have been drooling too much because suddenly she noticed him staring at her.

It's a well-documented fact that Mahmoud doesn't like hazel-eyes, but hers were different... they weren't hazel; they were sunlight incarnated in human eyes... It almost hurt to look directly into them. They were perfectly-shaped, sharp and intelligent while still being playful and humorous.. The type of eyes you usually see at the optician's in advertisements for contact lenses.

And then she smiled.

Before that day, Mahmoud could be quoted as saying that the happiest moment of his life was that one time when he had three slices of cheesecake at Cheesecake Factory and almost fainted from the sugar rush... Now he could say that her smile beat even that, and gave him the same sugar-rush.

Not only did her smile reveal teeth as hideous as a camel's- just kidding, it's a check to see who's still with me. 

Not only did her perfect, strawberry-red lips part to reveal porcelain-white teeth that glinted in the sunlight -reminding him on the only level of his existence that wasn't captivated by her smile that he should see his dentist one of these days- but also when her smile touched her eyes, they transformed into -green goblins made of cheese (still with me?)- beautiful pools of molten gold, full of life, energy and optimism. He could tell that this is not just a beautiful girl; this is a beautiful girl to have intelligent conversations-with; be yourself-around; laugh yourself into an early grave with and generally have enough fun to be illegal in Egypt. This is a girl to marry, not to stare at for.. 5 minutes? 30 minutes? An hour? He couldn't tell how long it had been... But time had stopped for him, and his surroundings didn't seem to matter one bit.

Inexplicably, he could already picture spending the rest of his life with her and growing old together.

They stared and smiled at each other in the middle of the traffic for what seemed like ages, and in the middle of the whirlpool of anger and Mediterranean temper and swear words and remorseless sunlight, they found happiness.. they found love. 

Even if only for a few brief moments before they received the cosmic middle finger in the form of traffic magically clearing, just when he was about to get out of his car to go talk to her.

In some ways, parting with a fleeting imaginary romance in traffic was much harder than some break-ups he'd had.. knowing that there was a lot of potential, wasted because fate hadn't made their lives intersect in a more sociable setting was a very hard realization...

But seriously, fuck traffic in Egypt.

Stockholm Syndrome

Here goes...

For the first time in my life, I can't express myself. I have so much to say that every time I try writing this I get overwhelmed by the sheer emotion I feel is incommunicable through words. How do you describe abstract concepts like time or energy or love?

I don't know why I love Egypt. There, I said it. There is no logical reason for it except maybe Stockholm Syndrome. Why would you love an oppressive country with a beyond corrupt government and completely illiterate and ignorant populace who judge you for being unique and hate you for being different? Why would you be loyal to a country that isn't loyal to you, where your rights are outright denied and your blood is cheaper than dirt? Why would you want to live somewhere where the populace excels in classifying you according to your looks, background, education, social class, religion, religion, religion and political opinions?

Why would you want to live in a country whose happiness rating ranks is in the bottom 35 countries in the world? Why would you have any sense of loyalty to a country that hasn't provided you with even the most basic of services for the taxes you pay, where you pay for your own education, healthcare, housing and transportation (if you can afford it)? Why would you want to work in a country where there hasn't been an original thought since the pyramids, which are apparently our only achievement in human history?

Why would you want to raise your children in a country where the education system is arguably the worst in the world? Why would you want to expose them to a private school where they would make friends with/get bullied by some entitled, spoiled, inadequately disciplined classmates who would crush creativity or initiative out of them at a very young age? and if you can't afford a private school, why would you send them to a glorified penitentiary where they won't learn anything other than doing drugs and sexually harassing girls for no other reason than because they don't know any better?  Why would you raise them in a country where it's apparently acceptable if they get killed on campus for demonstrating? And if they should happen to graduate alive, why would you want them to get a degree from either a terrible public school or an even worse private university where you have to pay half your life savings to give them a better shot at a job in a completely saturated job market due to a stagnant and failing economy? Why would you want their biggest achievement in their young adult life to be landing a stable, well-paying job (never mind a job they like)?

Why would you want to spend half your life in traffic where it's only getting worse by the day due to the complete lack of public transport infrastructure and complete reliance on cars? Why would you want to live in a country where it's perfectly normal to get 4-hour daily power outages during the unforgiving summer? Why would you want your wife/daughter sexually harassed or raped just because she showed her face outside the protective confines of your car? Why would you want to have to make a choice between the non-existent public transportation system or paying more than double the price for a car because of customs that are supposed to be there to encourage local manufacturers who don't actually exist? And after you buy the overpriced car, you make peace with the fact that it won't last for even half of its expected life because the "roads" we have are 50% potholes and completely neglected... and while we're at it, be sure to say your prayers before you drive because you might just be one of the 12,000 people who die every year in a car crash on Egyptian roads.

Why would you want to live in a country where you are there to serve the police, not the other way around? Why would you want to call the police to report a robbery and have them hang up on you or tell you "what  am I supposed to do about it?"? Why would you want to live in a country where governors are exclusively ex-policemen whose only job is to control the populace and crackdown on demonstrators? Why would you want to have to have connections to finish your government paperwork unless you want to spend months getting a paper signed by two underpaid, bureaucratic sadists who just want to ruin your life? Why would you want to be in a country where it is perfectly normal for a government official to be earning a 6 digit salary while more than a quarter of the population (about 23 million people) can't afford to feed themselves, and have no access to electricity or drinking water? Why would you want to live in a country where the health system is one of the most corrupt and inefficient in the world, where doctors are paid less than taxi drivers and patients are treated like moneybags... and if you can't afford medicine, then make way for someone who can?

Why would you want to live in a country that actively encourages xenophobia to gain legitimacy? Why would you want to live in a country where the armed forces have a monopoly over the industry and use the profits to line their pockets rather than modernize the obsolete military? Why would you want to live in a country where the ministry of defense is in complete, unparalleled charge of governing the country and even deals with multinational companies to build power stations have to be signed by the defense minster for some reason? Why would you want to live in a country where it's blasphemy to denounce the government's actions when they kill unarmed protesters and you get labelled a traitor and sentenced to prison?

I don't have the answer to any of those questions. I feel betrayed  by the promise of change and heartbroken by the lack of it. I feel like a gardener who watched his garden get trampled by stampeding elephants. I feel like a father who lost his firstborn. Egypt depresses me... and even though I have completely lost all faith and hope, for some reason I still feel like Egypt is my home, and I don't know what I am beyond "Egyptian". No matter how much I hate Egypt, I still can't help loving it... the reason why is beyond me.

I was planning to write a pros and cons-type of post where I first list everything I hate and then say everything I like and that at the end of the day they cancel out... but they don't. I couldn't find anything good to write about, other than "traffic doesn't feel so bad when you're laughing it off with a friend". I can't find two good things to say about a country I apparently can't get over...

 Yep, I'm calling it. Stockholm Syndrome.

Dear Diary

It's been a month since I've last written anything, and for me that was an entirely different life... a different world. Some people I cared deeply about are now barely acquaintances, and some concerns I had before I left feel no longer even slightly relevant. But don't you worry about me... I still have plenty to obsess about.

You see, what started this off is one day, when I left the office early. Usually between work, studying, cooking, laundry, grooming, gymming and all the other things I need to do to keep functioning, I don't have time for myself. I haven't talked to my family in weeks (aside from Whatsapp) and it's been so long since I've talked to any of my friends that most of them are probably going to have a hard time remembering who I am if we run into each other by chance somewhere... Not that there is much chance of that happening even if they're in town, because the only places I've been frequenting since I came here are my apartment and work.

But here's the ironic part: when I'm busy with all of the stuff mentioned above, I don't have time to contemplate... I'm a machine with a strict routine that doesn't have the luxury of alone time. When I'm not doing one of the above activities I'm going out with other people at the office because it's expected of me (and a little because I want to), and so I've found that I didn't really have time to think about anything during my first month here.

So when suddenly I did have some time, shit got real.

Going home relatively early and having a frozen pizza for dinner left plenty of time for some gaming... which is usually awesome when I'm being antisocial on purpose back in my room in Egypt (a room I'll probably never live in again, but that's a story for another time) but less awesome when I realized that for perhaps the first time in my adult life, being antisocial is no longer entirely up to me. When I got bored of gaming and felt like going out for an hour or two, I realized I didn't have that many people I could call up to hang out with, especially with my roommate working late and the apartment being uncharacteristically empty.

And that scared me more than anything else I could think of.

As a responsible adult with a day job whose friends are also working and not always free to hang out, it's understandable for that sort of thing to happen... but usually what happens next is that I'd spend some quality time with my parents or I'd go annoy my sister for a bit. Meaning I never lacked for human interaction. I could afford to be antisocial. What's happening now that I'm a bachelor living alone in another country is quite the opposite, and it's not that I want to go out every day but the idea that I "can't" if I want to is enough to make me panic.

Although "can't" is really the wrong word; I have lots of people I can hang out with but I've been dealing with so many people at work I'd rather not deal with that I've grown tired of unnecessary relationships and forced friendships. It's a bit depressing that both parties know they would much rather be somewhere else with other people, but they're unfortunately stuck with each other. There's a mutual understanding -an unspoken agreement- that yeah I know we don't like each other that much, but we're both here so we might as well pretend to until it's time to leave. It doesn't feel real... because it's isn't real. Of course there are exceptions to this, and I've met some great people here... but that's the exception that proves the rule.

I miss my friends and family. I miss my depressing room back in Cairo. I miss the traffic on the way to work every day. I miss making spontaneous decisions to go out with friends at 9 PM on a Tuesday. I miss having someone clean up my room and do my laundry and prepare my food... Not to sound spoiled, but it's hard to to do that stuff if you're used to someone else doing it all the time. Even my annoying maid who I hated with every fiber of my being would be a welcome sight in my emotionless hotel room where I'm just a whiskey bottle and a few packs of cigarettes away from the stereotypical self-hating narcissist wasting away... except that I'm way too young for that.

And then there's her.

I don't know why fate toys with me so much. It is nothing short of a cruel joke, and I'm not laughing. It's not funny. If my life was a novel, only the most bitter, sadistic writer could have come up with this scenario. I miss her and I want to do something about it, but I don't really have any options. I have to choose between doing nothing and doing something really stupid, and I don't think I like either scenario... and I know she feels the same. Neither one of us needs to say anything, but we both know what's going on and we are both unsure what we should do about it... But what CAN we do? Long-distance is suicide for a healthy, long-term relationship, let alone one that hasn't even started yet. I suppose the best course of action is to not do anything, but I don't like it because it leaves too much room for misunderstandings.

So yeah, like I said, I don't think this post has a point... but the title should have given that away. If you're still here you have only yourself to blame. As for me, I'm completely burned out now and I've been writing this blog post for the past hour at work so evidently I don't give a flying fuck anymore. Let's hope the weekend brings some relief... Although it's unlikely because my roommate (who I've apparently grown too dependent on) is travelling for the weekend and I have the whole apartment, just for me and my thoughts...

Fun.

Alien

I'm not really sure what I'm here to say.  Maybe I'm feeling guilty because the last time I wrote something, it was still 2014... which doesn't seem so long ago, to be honest. Maybe I came here to vent. Maybe I felt like catching a whiff of my comfort zone, shattered beyond repair.

Or maybe I wanted to get some closure.

"Closure for what", you ask?  The end of life as I know it.

Anyone who's ever been within bitching distance of me knows how much I tend to romanticize things and get overly sentimental. Small wonder then, that I've grown so attached to my comfort zone, which I've taken to a whole new plane of existence. I've built towers and castles and palaces of solitude. I've spent so much time fortifying myself in that zone, building defenses and unbreakable walls and isolating myself in my endless quest to push away everyone who ever cared... maybe out of fear of weakness, or an unshakable desire for independence... or perhaps a bit of both.

At any rate, it worked. And you know what's ironic? It wasn't my choice this time.

All these years, I've taken a fierce pride in my minimal need for other people. Yeah, I have lots of friends. Sure, I have a loving family. I've heard it all before, so unroll your eyes or get out of my blog. My whole life is built around the fact that we come into this world alone, and we're going to exit it alone. Everyone you interact with is going to leave at some point, and the sooner you come to terms with it, the sooner you start being comfortable in your own company. Years spent trying to convince myself that friendships and relationships matter have been completely fruitless, because no human relationship is sacred. Ultimately, very few people would actually go out of their way to help or support their loved ones... and I've been one of that unlucky number for most of my life, so you'll forgive me if I'm a bit cynical, having received very little in return.

"But Bondok, you handsome bastard, you're like one of the most popular and awesome people I know and I'm standing in a queue of very hot girls who'd do anything for you and I kind of forgot my point!", you ask? Well have no fear because I have no idea where I was going with that anyways.

My point is, I've always had the choice. Whenever I wanted to switch between "social butterfly" mode and "antisocial lone wolf" mode, I only had to flick a mental switch. It was really that simple.

Now I won't really have that option.

"But Bondok, why are you being so vague and mysterious and OMG it's so sexy!", you ask? Like I said, I have no idea what I'm here to say. I'm just starting to wonder if this is what I really want. Maybe there is another way. Maybe I don't have to be a dark, brooding, self-defeating protagonist in a bad 80s movie. "Maybe you don't have to have imaginary conversations with yourself on your own blog, you sexy beast", you say? You're completely right, but stop sucking up to me because I'm getting tired of it.

Now I will have to get a one-way ticket out of my comfort zone, knowing the implications full well. I am forever gone, and will never return. I will be that alien, wandering around a strange alternate universe where I don't belong, knowing that I've been banished from the home I've been living in for 23 years. And now as I wander through the debris of my fallen towers and the empty halls of my comfort zone for the last time, I wonder if it was all worth it. I wonder if maybe I had it wrong. Maybe I didn't make use of a valuable resource that I won't have access to anymore. Maybe now that I'll have the rug pulled from under my feet, I could have used a soft cushion to break my fall.

But all I have is the emptiness and solitude. And what makes me worry is that that's the way I like it.

It feels a bit like home.

Bondok's School of Real-life Skills - What College Should Have Really Taught Us

Craig was late for class again. But it was OK.

"Craig, aren't you late for class or something?" Asked Kyle, who spotted his friend Craig walking with theatrically exaggerated slowness towards his class. Craig turned around at the sound of his name, and upon spotting Kyle, started walking towards him at the same comic pace.

-Oh, hey Kyle! Nah, it's cool, it's an assignment for SOAR 381...

= Sounds interesting! What course is that?

- "Shrugging Off Adult Responsibility 101". This is our Nothing Happens If You Are Late For Class assignment. The professor asked us to come late to prove to us that all that bullshit about being on time is completely irrelevant in real life.

=That's kinda weird, dude. What if you're late for a meeting at work or something?

- That's the next chapter in our curriculum. It's all about giving adult excuses like an adult, like "I blew a tire" or "I was feeling a bit under the weather" or "there was an intense traffic jam" or if you live in Egypt, "someone bombed my neighborhood". Then we're gonna discuss other important topics, like "turning off your phone to be conveniently unreachable" and "pretending not to have internet when you want to pretend like you didn't know about certain social events or work e-mails".

=Wow, that sounds like a blast! Is that an elective?

- No, I'm majoring in "Corporate Whoring", so it's one of the required courses I have to take.

= Is that a new major?

- Yeah, this is only its third year. The program takes you through various aspects of Corporate Whoring, such as:
* Formal Attire (FA 103, 286 and 302), which teaches you to dress-up like the corporate, blood-sucking fucking whore you hope to one day be;
*Ass-Slurping Successfully (ASS 209 and 304) which takes you through various methods of brown-nosing and ass-kissing;
*Number-Crunching (NC 102, 308, 412) which teaches you Excel (the only tool you're ever going to use in your career);
*Shrugging Off Adult Responsibility (SOAR 101, 213, 312 and 416) which is all about teaching you creative excuses to throw at anyone who inquires about your failures/behavior, and how to shift the blame to someone else if they press you too much.
We also take;

* A Bullshit course (BS 316) as an elective to refine our public speaking skills and our CV-dressing up skills;
* A Public Image course (PI 212) to help you cultivate an artificial successful, arrogant douchey exterior to the envy of your friends. It also covers interesting topics such as "choosing your friends according to their looks and success" and "creating misleading Facebook and Instagram profiles" and "pretending to have a social life";
* Filing 101 which is a very important first step on the corporate ladder;
* Corporate Nutrition (CR 213) which teaches you to survive on snack-foods and the either badly burnt or raw food that you tried to cook for yourself, while also providing you with the tools you'll need to deal with your future caffeine addiction as a corporate whore...
and let's not forget the important political science courses such as;
*Office Politics (OP 319 and 330), which can help you pretend to be cute and cuddly and friendly at the office when you're internally raging at the world that woke you up at 7 am and swearing red vengeance.

=That's an intense program... My major is all about calculating who pays what when you're splitting the bill with other people at a restaurant.

-Yeah, I'm minoring in Receipt Accounting. I figured I'd give myself some extra options, you know? I'm also minoring in "Salary Management and Rationing", to give myself that extra edge and so I don't completely run out of money by the second week of each month.

=I think I'm going to change my major to Corporate Whoring too, it seems to have a more promising future.

-Yeah, that'd be awesome! And then I can screw you over and have you reported for some made-up crime for my SOAR project!

-Are the courses hard, though? My GPA can't handle a plunge right now...

=Oh, it's completely cool! In Corporate Whoring, the lower you score, the higher your GPA! It's all about teaching you that if you can bullshit your way through life, it's all gonna work out for you, hard work be damned! So if you're a graduating senior on probation, it means that you're graduating with highest honors!

<a couple of stoned hippies pass by, and Craig's facial expression immediately changes>

-No matter what you do, do NOT mix with those Algebra hippies. They're wasting their time and money on a major which is all about asking questions nobody cares about and you'll never use algebra in real life and they're never gonna get a real job.

<COUGH> PHILOSOPHY <COUGH>.

Fucking hippies...
Fucking philosophy.
Fucking algebra.

Scamation Vacations

Disclaimer: Before I piss anyone off, I have nothing but respect for Somali people and I hope that one day soon Somalia will be prosperous and that Somali people will live in peace. This is just an elaborate joke and is not intended to offend.

*************************************************************

You’re on your way home from work. Traffic is unbelievable, your A/C broke down in the middle of August, and you’re slowly melting. Not only that, but your radio also broke down for the sake of this story, and you’re beginning your gradual descent into madness as you start to have a heated (no pun intended) debate with yourself about the failings of capitalism. Suddenly someone bumps into your rear bumper and finally gives you that final tip off the edge, and you fly off the handle and get out of your car to give them a piece of your mind when you realize that the car that bumped into you is full of construction-worker-type guys who are looking for an outlet to vent out their frustration (and your face is readily available), so you end up waving at them cheerfully and gloomily walking back to your car.

Does any of that ring a bell? Did you ever stop and wonder what it would be like to leave all this behind and go on a fantastic, literally once-in-a-lifetime trip?

Well, look no further, because Scamation Vacations is here to help!

What we offer for the nominal fee of $5000 per person is an exclusive two-week vacation in beautiful Somalia, where the fun never stops! Not only will you be staying at a 2-star hotel, in a room with a guaranteed view of the Indian ocean because the hotel hasn't installed "walls" yet, but you will also have occasional access to such luxuries as indoor plumbing, running water and up to 45 minutes of electricity per night. Not only that, but you will also experience the pleasure of foraging/murdering for your own food, which is guaranteed to satisfy a primal urge you didn’t even know you had. There are also several activities at the hotel, such as standing guard in shifts with an AK-47 to keep out marauders and thieves; prayer hour as you and your loved ones huddle up close and pray to God to live to see the morning; and voting which person to slaughter and eat in order not to starve.

But don’t let the hotel restrain you from the lovable chaos outside its electrified fence! If you venture out, you would be able to witness first-hand all the things that make Somalia great, such as the refreshing, sweltering heat; the famine; the drought; the heavily-armed terrorist groups; the heavily-armed resistance, the heavily-armed government forces and the heavily-armed pirates battling it out in a close-enough-to-taste-the-blood-as-it-spatters-on-your-face free for all. And if you’re lucky and able-bodied, you might even be recruited to crew one of the many pirate ships that patrol the Indian ocean, where you can live out the life of a 16^th century pirate in the age of GPS and guided missiles… What could possibly go wrong?! Also, If you're a woman (or an especially pretty man), don't worry, you might not get a job as a sailor on a pirate ship but sex trafficking is a thriving business in Somalia and being sold abroad as a prostitute is a very viable alternative! Just think of all the STD fun!

If you’re not the adventurous type, however, we highly recommend that you go to the capital and experience the Somali culture and traditions first-hand, such as decapitation, starvation, ethnic cleansing and the occasional genocide. If you should also feel inclined to pillage, rape and kill the locals, you are highly encouraged to do so: in fact, Somali people are greatly offended if you don’t at least attempt to pillage, rape and murder them. If you decide to pillage, we highly advise you to steal/sample the local cuisine, composed of such delicacies as grilled rats, human-corpse-souflet, and cactus soup as well as seawater sweetened with human blood. As for those of you planning their romantic honeymoon, you'll definitely enjoy the beautiful fireworks/drone strikes as you flee for your lives from the fiery rain of death. It’s everything you’ve ever dreamed of!

So go on www.totallynotrippingyouoff.com now and book your tickets, available for a limited time only! If you book them now, we’ll also throw in an apocalypse-survival kit and a multi-purpose assault rifle to add a special flavor to your hunting. Don’t miss this relaxing, once-in-a-lifetime experience (because it will likely be your last). Order now!

Before We're Cold

You look at me with an angry glare
I smile back with a blank stare
You hesitate just long enough
For me to give an awkward cough

Instead you turn and storm away
Why are you angry? I couldn't say
I think it's because I hate her feet
Or maybe it's about the toilet seat

Either way, the point is moot
She'll fume until she turns to soot
I really don't see why she's so mad
I'd said something that made her sad

"I meant it not!" I tried to yell
But old English is hard to sell
To an angry girl; she flipped me off
And went to a corner in which to scoff

Don't get me wrong, I'm not amused
but her overreaction has me confused
She knows that I'm devoid of tact
And I left the toilet seat up, in fact

But then, so what? She has that smell
A weird mixture of eggs and hair gel
She walks lopsided and snores at night
And farts when she thinks I'm out of sight

She lies upside down on the couch
And always has a pronounced slouch
She says bad jokes, at which she'd laugh
and then she'd yell at restaurant staff

What was my point? I think I forget
Oh yes; this relationship I seem to regret
But we're all human, we all have flaws
We should not fight without a good cause

Up an ivory tower, it's easy to judge
But maybe someone will give you a nudge
And then you'll fall to a lonely death
And curse yourself with your last breath

She might have flaws, but she's so sweet
She has that dazzling smile when we meet
She's made me laugh and shared her food
And never opened her mouth as she chewed

I love her and I know she loves me
To everyone, that is very plain to see
"I'm actually sorry" I suddenly realize
I think I might just go apologize

Because we're only alive now, you see
And who knows how long it will be
Before warmth fades and we grow old
Then our frail old bodies turn ice-cold

But as Life is short, there is no time
For me to make more words rhyme
So with all the love within my heart
I conclude this work of art

So we dance away, and we bask
In each others' warmth, but then you ask:
What did you say to make her fold?
"Come on, let's dance before we're cold"