Case in point. Just in the past few months, I've had some "interesting" adventures that I'd like to share:
* I inherited a gecko. Yes, that's right. My cousin and his family bought a new dog and were concerned that their gecko was being neglected, so they asked if I would be his new mommy. So I became the proud new parent of a gecko named Bob (named by my 9 yr old friend, Jacob).
* Bob died. I was in DC for a week and had my friend Marlene take care of him. The day after I got home, I looked in his cage and noticed that he was completely lifeless! I poked him with a gum wrapper and nothing happened. He just lay there pale and cool. I called my cousin and sadly told him that Bob had passed away and had entered gecko heaven.
* Bob was resurrected. After I told some friends that Bob had died, they told me that I should put him in the freezer and then have a ceremony for him during the weekend. When I got home that night, I immediately walked towards the cage to put my dead scaly friend into the freezer, but I noticed he wasn't where I had left him. He was standing on a branch staring at me. If he could talk, I swear he would have said, "Haha, SUCKA! That's what you get for leaving me for a week!" Imagine my cousin's surprise when I called him and told him that Bob was actually alive and kickin'.
Some non-Bob adventures:
*I was in D.C. at a restaurant last month and used the men's bathroom...on purpose. I really had to go, ok??? Kharma struck when the next day, I was waiting forever to use the women's bathroom at Starbucks only to find out that the person who was occupying the single stall for an eternity was none other than a man.
*I was speaking to an elderly gentleman before giving a presentation on Arab culture, and he was telling me all about his Arab friends that own a coney island. All of a sudden, I noticed he was stumbling with his words and got kind of jittery. He looked at me and says, "I'm sorry, but I'm really nervous. You're really pretty." I didn't know whether to thank him or apologize to the 65 year old man.
And now time for the portion of my blog you've all been waiting for:
NU-HADVENTURE OF THE DAY
For those of you who know my mom, you know that she's a clean freak. And if you know me, you know that I am not one. What happens when a passionate OCD Arab woman gives birth to a girl who would rather watch "You Can't Do That On Television" and eat cherry Pop Tarts than remove every single plate/dish/cup out of the cupboards once a week to wipe down each square inch with rag doused in Pledge? Well, here's what happens...
One day, my mother and I had just got in a huge screaming match over... you guessed it: cleaning. Apparantly, I hadn't done a good enough job of dusting the couch or something like that. After we got sick of yelling at each other, I wiped the countercops as hard as I could to kill two birds with one stone. Bird #1: Attempt to make Nuha happy by making her countertops immaculate. Bird #2: Let out my anger and frustration by scrubbing as hard as I could. As I was doing this, my mom- sporting a cotton nightgown- was on her hands and knees "mopping" the tile floor Nuha-style. All I could think about was how livid I was and how much I wanted to move out of the house, UNTIL...
I noticed my mom had taken a break from scrubbing the floor, yet she remained on her hands and knees. When I looked down to see why she had paused, she looked up and smiled. Before I even had time to wonder why this angry Arab would be smiling at me, I noticed a yellow stream flowing from underneath her gown onto the freshly mopped floor. Yep, she peed herself. I guess the excitement from our argument did something to her bladder. Once again, Nuha had turned a seemingly horrible encounter into a moment that cracked me up so hard that I was very close to releasing my own stream.