O’Halloran

You’ll be pleased to know that I received my first haircut in Yemen the other day. It went without incident, although another customer said quite loudly, “He has the hair of a donkey,” which, I’m quite sure, was aimed at me. My mood became sour. I started thinking.

‘Yeah, well you’re stupid…and dumb.’ I couldn’t come up with anything in English and I had bupkis in Arabic. I felt like Costanza in that episode where he flies to Akron to zing a guy who zinged him. I had no material, and couldn’t think of anything in English or Arabic that would be sufficiently jabby, cleaver, or subtle.

 Everyone in the barber shop was chewing qat except for me (I had tried it once and hated it, but I think I might have gotten some low-grade stuff–qat’s shwag equivelent?). So I stewed… ‘Yeah, well the jerk store called, and they’re running out of you.’ But all I could think of was bupkis and seafood.