Froggy's World - Alms for Oblivion (Weblog)

The Sheik of Stony Creek
14th March, 2008

The pipe gurgled like a blocked drain as a wisp of smoke drifted from the bowl.
   "How's it going?" called my wife.
   "Just fine," I gasped. "I've almost got the hang of it."
Sucking on the pipe again, I was rewarded with more gurgles but very little in the way of smoke. There was obviously more to smoking a sheesha than first appeared, although those Arabs we'd seed during a documentary from Dubai had made it look simple. "Gurgle," went the pipe, and I was rewarded with a mouthful of smoke that sent me staggering across the backyard. "Need a bit more practice," I wheezed in between coughs.
It was a quite large, and impressively decorated, glass water pipe and although I had bought it, it had been decided it would be kept locked away in the spare room. "You'll come home from a long lunch with your friends, decide that what you really need is a puff on a sheesha and smash it," my wife had said. I didn't bother to contest this point as just such a scenario had already occurred to me, a vision of sitting cross-legged on a pile of cushions in our loungeroom puffing away on the water pipe after a few bottles of beer. Damn, I thought. This woman knows me too well.
It had not been the only foreign object we'd bought. For reasons I can only ascribe to temporary insanity, we had also picked up two traditional Arab outfits - dishdashas, I believe they are called - mine in white with a red and white checked headdress and hers in black with a face covering. "Where will we wear them?" I asked. "I don't think they're ready for it at work." So we put them aside until last week when we were preparing to go to a friend's place for lunch.
   "We should wear the Arab gear," said my wife, "for a laugh."
   "I don't know that it's politically correct to have a laugh at other persons' cultural idiosyncrasies," I said.
   "Then how come it's okay for people to make jokes about Australians wearing sluggos and bumcrack shorts and Scotsmen wearing kilts and Dutchmen wearing clogs?" she asked.
   "You're right," I said. "Get dressed."
There are no zips in a dishdasha and climbing into it, like smoking the sheesha, involved an unexpected degree of difficulty. Then there was the headdress, which kept sliding onto my nose. Eventually we both stood in all our Arabian glory.
   "Sheik Marcus of Toowong," she said.
   "Thank you," I replied. "You look like one of those nuns that my Grandfather used to tell me about when he was in school. They used to hit him with a strap."
   "Forget it," she said. "You'd only enjoy it."
So I grabbed a six-pack of beer and she picked up a bottle of wine and our son and we headed off down the driveway, nodding solemnly to the people who passed along the way.
   "You have to walk behind me," I whispered.
   "Why?" she asked.
   "Because you're a woman," I said.
   "I'd kill you," she shot back.
   "That's not allowed either," I said as we walked out onto the street where I'd parked, followed every step by the curious stares of Saturday afternoon pedestrians.
Here's a word of warning. If you're thinking of wearing an Arab headdress, be careful when driving as it's rather difficult to see either to the left or the right. After several near misses in traffic we parked at our friend's apartment and got out of the car.
   "I'm sweltering," I hissed. "I thought these things were supposed to be cool."
   "How do you think I feel?" came the voice from behind the veil. "It's got to be 100 degrees in here."
Walking obediently behind me, she checked out the surrounds as we headed for the entrance. "There are people peering at us through the windows - I think it might be your six-pack."
As you read this, emergency meetings of bodies corporate are being held in the western suburbs of Brisbane as they ponder reports of beer-swilling, wine-slurping Arabs moving into their leafy domain. Next week, we're going back with a camel.

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