**by Hamda al-Fadi, DMV clerk
**
Brooklyn, September 11 - My son turned five today, and I thought we'd acknowledge his milestone by not just keeping the celebration within the walls of our apartment, but showing him we want to share the occasion with the whole neighborhood. That we're so proud he's ours! But things took a dark turn the moment we put up a sign in the window facing the street. It turns out that people don't want to see "Happy Birthday Osama!" in this city? Who knew?
We had hostile people knocking on our door all day. I got tired of explaining it's a name with a proud history in our family, and carries connotations of fame and glory - it means "name" or "fame" in Arabic, and it was my great-grandfather's name back in Syria. I even showed them photos of my little angel. But folks got angry. They yelled something about doing this "today of all days." Of course it's going to be today! It's his birthday!
I thought America was more tolerant than this. I thought New York City was more tolerant than this. "Nine-eleven. Nine-eleven." That's all I heard the whole day. Yes I know it's nine-eleven! I got used to your backwards American way of rendering dates with the month before the day instead of the normal way the rest of the world does it, from more specific to less, day-month-year. You think I can't pick up a new date format the way I picked up your weird mongrel language? It's the condescension for me.
Also a whole bunch of people kept comparing it to naming my son "Adolph." Why would I name my sone Adolph? I'm not German and its Arabic equivalent is lame, as names go.
By the time little Osama got home, it was nearly impossible to see the sign from the street. Some thugs had decided it would be fun to ruin his day - and ours - by egging the whole window. I hoped he wouldn't notice it, and that we'd just turn around the sign once we got home, and pretend it was only meant for us to see from the inside. But he noticed the messy window. I don't want him to grow up insecure, so I had to improvise. I basically made something up, you know, try not to make big deal out of it - I told him some people did something.