One of the things that happen in Iraq in a close extended family such as mine is that the oldest of the sons, me in this scenario, would be in charge of scolding, teaching, and taking care of my boy cousins. It's a mission and job that I tend to ignore a lot, especially that my cousins are either few months, or two years younger than I and the last they'd want to hear is someone who's barely older than they are act as an authority figure. Add to that the fact that they're not listening to the actual authority figures in their lives, I.E their parents. As a result of that, my uncle would wait for all his pet peeves with them pile up before throwing them on me.
So few days ago my uncle asked me to come over to talk about a job he found for me, which as some of you may know is something I've been really looking for. After we exchanged our salaams and the famous Arab man kiss on the cheeks that lasts about four months, and that damn nose kiss that I always actively try to avoid.
I mean, look at it! One wrong move could turn this from a family kiss to "let's make a family" kiss. In a region where homosexuality is a crime, how is this not the first thing they ban? So anyway we finished the moment that can be described the second most intimate thing a boy can do with his uncle he started talking, and it went a little bit like this.
Uncle: There's no way I could accept this behavior by your cousins!
Me: Didn't you ask me for a job you found?
Uncle: What's a greater job than improving your cousins lives?
Me: I don't know, improving my own maybe? And sure, you could have said it wasn't about a job and I'd have not spend the last 5,000 Dinars (About 4 dollars) I have for a taxi to come as fast as possible for the job.
Uncle: You wouldn't have come if you knew it was about this.
Me: YES! Because that was the last 5,000 Dinars that I had!
Uncle: Anyway (Which is a code for shut up now). Your cousins are driving me crazy with their behavior I'm considering killing them (Which is a code for my cousins driving him insane that he's considering killing them)
Me: Uncle, this is not just their problem it's the entire generation.
Uncle: I can't kill the entire generation.
Me: That answers like 3% of what I said. Also, good.
Then he sat down, which means that it's about to be a long conversation.
Uncle: Your cousins are failing college for the 4th year.
Me: Wow, so in a way, they graduated at failing.
Uncle: ...........
Me: Just.... Trying to look at the bright side. About the job, like is it definitely not happening or you're just...
Uncle interrupting me: Your cousin Maher needs to be taught a lesson. He hacked your uncle Abdulameer's Facebook account.
Me: I'd hardly call it hacking since he had the password because uncle Abdulameer gave it to him so he doesn't forget it. Also why are you referring to him as my cousin? He's YOUR SON. Plus don't you think....
Uncle interrupting me again: So you're going to talk to him
Me: Okay, I'm glad we agreed on that...
Uncle: Plus your cousin Ali needs a serious talk from you so he fixes the way he's acting.
Me: Wasn't the whole tribe considering killing him few weeks back for wearing shorts?
Uncle: Yeah, but I need you to send him a strong message of punishment if he doesn't stop his bad behavior.
Me: What do you think that I could say to him that will have a bigger impact than an entire tribe considering having him dead? Take away his Playstation ?
Uncle: He has an Xbox not a playstation.
Me: Again, 3% of what I'm saying.
After that we had a moment of silence while his wife served us tea, which is one of my least favorite thing to drink. Not that I hate tea, but because apparently in our tribe you're not a real man if you put sugar in your tea, and the way Iraqis make tea is that they don't use t-bags
And they really burn and make it heavy and pitch black that it looks like coffee. And just as much as putting sugar in the tea makes you not a man, not drinking it makes an even less of a man. So to avoid agony I just drank all at once along with most of the tea leaves. I could still taste the bitterness till today, mainly because my uncle saw how fast I drank it and thought I just liked it and offered me his. Anyway the conversation.
Me: About the job.
Uncle: I got a call from Dhurgham, he's the head of the Iraqi police department for combating car theft.
Me: Does he have a job for me?
Uncle: Your cousin Karar stole his car.
Me: Kinda impressive. Hey, don't you think you're being a little bit mean to my cousins? They're not all failures, Cousin Waleed for example is a successful doctor, cousin Tarik is the engineer who designed the river bridge, cousin Hussam is a pilot.
Uncle: And your cousin Karar stole the car of the head of the Iraqi police department for combating car theft.
Me: Why did he do that by the way?
Uncle: He said he was trying to prove a point.
Me: Which was ?
Uncle: That he can steal the car of the head of the Iraqi police department for combating car theft.
Me: Well, let's just be thankful he wasn't trying to prove a point to homeland security. Now about that job?
My uncle shushed me as his second son Taher walked in. Taher was holding a briefcase.
Uncle: Your cousin here was caught sneaking into the girls university opposite to our house.
Me: Would you stop referring to your sons as my cousins whenever you're angry at them.
My uncle got up and walked away angry.
Me: Taher couldn't you have at least sneaked into the girls university by the end of the street?
Taher: I wasn't sneaking in, I was tutoring there.
Me: Tutoring? Inside a university? You?
Taher: Yeah.
Me: Seriously, you? A man who failed 4 times at passing first year of language school was tutoring girls at the MEDICAL university? What were you teaching them? Speaking Korean while removing the appendix?
Taher: Not that kind of lessons, my lessons are very effective it takes only few months for the results to show. Just few months after my lessons and the girls get....
Me interrupting: They get their degrees?
Taher: No, they get an abortion.
Me: ...........
Taher: And they get the abortion, and I get to fail another year at language school.
Me: Explains a lot, what's that briefcase for?
Taher: Tools for anything that needs opening, sardin cans, salmon cans, windows, doors.
Me: Did Karar by any chance borrow this from you.
Taher: Yeah, I actually just got it from him, how'd you know?
Me: Just a hunch.
I nominate 
