Another day, another conundrum

Ahhhhhhhh, nothing like a nice hot cup of earl grey tea to help you unwind after a long day at work. Of course, in Saudi Arabia, to fully enjoy hot tea without feeling like you're ingesting molten lava while sitting in the earth's core, I had to turn the air-conditioning down to about 15 degrees. I also had to take off my shirt. In fact, it was a necessity to take off my pants as well and sit down wearing only my boxers. And now, I come to realise that I have unwittingly revealed that I am sitting here in my underwear, typing this blog entry. Poo.

Well no matter, coz that can't be anywhere as weird as what happened at work today. Picture this; Its the tail-end of the check-in process. Only 2 passengers are in the check-in area, each served by a counter. The other counters are empty, as was my dedicated business class counter. This random guy (turns out he was a passenger traveling on Garuda) walks over to the business class counter and stops about 4 feet away from the check-in agent. He looks untidy and he's got some funky head gear on. Not quite a turban, but not the saudi head-scarf either. Lets call him Scrappy.

Scrappy then proceeds to tug at my business class carpet! He pulls it about 2 meters away and lays it at an angle. He then gets on it and starts to pray! WHAT THE HELL? I was dumbfounded. Flabbergasted. Gobsmacked. What is this nincompoop doing?? Well obviously he's praying... but on my check-in carpet?!?! I walked over, and I could see the ground staff supervisor walking over as well.

Darren: "Excuse me sir, please get off my carpet"
Scrappy: "No, is my. sha allah I pray"
Darren: "not on my carpet you're not"
Scrappy: "Where you carpet? no yours is my"

I calmly bent forward and pointed to the "business class" font, next to the familiar golden bird. "what do you think this says?"


At which he looked up at me, eyes wider than the dinner plates I have at home. Hell, it looked like alla himself had reached out and grabbed scrappy's balls. The ground staff supervisor then grunted something to scrappy in arabic and scrappy walked off looking defeated. "sorry boss, sometimes these people dunno." Abdullah said to me. "Oh boss I will be on leave from November to December. Going to sell samosa. ok?"

"uh.....ok.....?" I replied. Walking over to my check-in staff, I muttered, "Shit I'm going nuts, I thought I heard Abdullah telling me that he was taking leave to go sell samosas"

"oh yes, he opens a shop by the road for pilgrims to buy samosa when they go for hajj" he replied. By now, I had no expression on my face. There was just too much weirdness going on. "you're shitting me!" I said. "oh sorry boss, maybe its from the hummus and beans I ate a lot for lunch". At this point, I just walked off to seek solace in my office.