They tried to steal my money.

My mom didn’t know this story so I figured I would start with it.

There are always so many unplanned experiences that spawn out of every one of my ‘adventures of a lifetime’ trips. This one happened to occur on the way to Nepal. It happened right at the start, which is always a good omen.

My trip over there was crazy long. I flew Charlotte-Chicago-Toronto-Frankfurt-Qatar-Kathmandu,Nepal (too much fog to land)-Bangladesh-Kathmandu, Nepal. On the way I was lucky enough to have several multi-hour layovers. One of those 8 hours stops was in Qatar.

I wandered around the small Qatar International airport, looking at all the expensive gadgets and electrical toys on display, trying to kill as many hours as I could. The female cops keeping a close eye on me the whole time were dressed in all black from head to toe. They had on flowing gowns and I could only see their eyes and hands…how was that supposed to make me feel safe? Even the cops dressed like robbers. I worked my way through the overpriced portable dvd players, wondering how many times in the next couple months i would wish i had access to some form of entertainment that didnt involve a ball of yarn, deflated basketball and a cricket bat…turns out the kids kept me busy. The two most common questions i had to answer upon arriving at the orphanage were “who is your favorite wrestler” and “do you think that WWF wrestling is fake?”..i cruelly crushed more than a few dreams when i honestly answered that question….aahhh yeah, but i digress.

I headed upstairs and started looking through all the food I had to chose from. This was a very important decision. Not only did I have a long plane ride ahead of me with no guaranteed meals, but if i chose a meal that my body disapproved of..it could get really uncomfortable for all the people stuck sitting within the confines of nine to eleven cubic meters of recycled airspace with me…roughly rows 15 to 24. Believe me, it doesn’t take long for people to start seeing through both back up plans. Plan number one being to try your hardest to trap any smells in the hardy flotation devices strapped to your bum that also double as seat cushions. Plan two being to stare at the obviously non-airtight bathrooms every time an escaping cushion odor matches up with that sweaty guy coming out of the functional, yet surprisingly intimidating, high speed flushing bathroom area. On a side note, Have you ever wondered why they make those bathroom doors so small? Its like the designers of the bathroom areas on planes have absolutely no concept of ‘personal space’. When is the last time you were ever anywhere, besides an airplane, where you had to open the narrowest door imaginable, squeeze out into the most meager amount of isle space, and try to your best to figure out a courteous way to rub your entire body up against a perfect strangers body as recycled curry smells are wafting out of the room behind you? I think the toughest questions in life have nothing to do with the “meaning of life”..or “solving world peace”. Its pretty obvious that a much tougher question is one that has no right answer. Every time you come out of that bathroom you have to decide how to make that pass…do you go face to face…bums to bums…face to bums…there is no right answer. But I digress.

There were so many great smells wafting off of that hot grill . After hours and hours “on the road” a nice hot meal was exactly what the doctor ordered. However..I, more than anyone..except maybe my wife, understand my ‘tubal workings’ and realized that some of those exotic spices might have a very negative effect on long term odor control. With a small frown on my face i opted for the plastic wrapped exhaustingly bland cold sandwich. I payed for my stupid sandwich with money i didn’t understand. I probably got totally ripped off and paid way too many of the bigger coins than I should have but that wasn’t what ruin my day, it only put the cherry on top of my misery cake.

I shuffled over to some of those awesomely comfortable, hard, black plastic airport chairs. I sat down and unwrapped my bland sandwich and prepared for another boring meal. I reached into my carry-on and pulled out a bottle of water. As I zipped up my bag two chumps wearing ‘dresses’ sat down on either side of me. ‘Amad’ and ‘Jihad’ had white ‘towels’ over their heads with black cords wrapped around them, holding them in place. Surprisingly those girl power cops were off on a break..or maybe suspiciously watching some innocent white guy look at cameras. I was on my third bite of thinly sliced ‘meat’ between cardboard when the two, already breaking every personal space rule, leaned in a bit closer. Amad said to me in broken english “i need you to give me your money”, Jihad broke in with “come, now”. I just took a big bite of my sandwich and chewed slowly. I was trying to figure out what to say, and also trying not to gag on my tasty sandwich at the same time. Amad just stared at me vacantly while Jihad had a weird look on his face. It was pretty obvious that the brains behind their operation wasn’t present. Amad worked up his courage and stammered out his only english words “i need you to give me your money”. Jihad grinned and said “come, now” so excited that he got to say his line again. I stopped chewing and said “nope”. Oh man, the loop had been thrown. Amad looked at Jihad, Jihad looked at Amad. Jihad took the lead, reached over and took the sandwich out of my hand. He took a big bite of my sandwich and grunted. Then both of them got up and walked away. I broke off the part he had touched, peeled back some more of the plastic wrapping and wondered how “Qatar’s dumbest Criminals” still had both their hands. This was going to be an adventure.

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