Growing Up

It is custom to the lebanese elders to perform some visits to their friends or grandchildren. Ever since I was a kid, both my grandmothers came to our house on a weekly basis. At first, these visits were the high point of my week since my grandmothers snuck me some candy which they had in their purse and which my mom forbid me to eat. The question that I kept asking myself when I was a kid, who didn’t discover the world, is where did my grandmother get so much candy, and why did she put it in her purse. Is she like willy wonka? Does she have a secret chocolate factory hidden in her house along with a bunch of umpa lumpas? I performed several searches of her house but I didn’t come up with anything, she was cleverer than I suspected. As I grew up, I started noticing something that I overlooked before; whenever we offered my grandma some chocolate or some hard candy she would take it as it is and put it in her purse. At first I thought that she would eat it later at home but then I came to the conclusion that represents the sad reality. All the chocolate that I had as a kid, were given to her by other people, and our chocolate will be offered to some strangers. From now on whenever she offers me candy I ask her about the latest time she got out of her house, just to estimate the time this chocolate spent in her purse. Like I said, as a kid I enjoyed those visits, but as I grew up they started to cause me more discomfort. Every visit is accompanied by some nagging on my looks; why don’t I shave, by some nagging on the fact that I do not call her on a daily basis, by some nagging on her maid,… I have problems of my own which are far from being solved, I don’t mind listening to her but since it is the same topics of conversation week in and week out I find these visits a little dull. Another thing that elder people do is whenever someone who they knew, even for the shortest period of time dies they wear black for 40 days. While she was young my grandma was quite popular, and now all her friends are leaving us due to diseases or other miscellaneous reasons so this means that I haven’t seen my grandmother wearing anything other than black for a full year. At first I thought that it was hard for her all her friends dying, but once I asked her why she was wearing black this time, she told me that the daughter of the man who owns the mini-market from where they buy their groceries have died. I told her that it was a little bit extreme but then she told me that what if she crosses this man and she wasn’t wearing black, it would be awkward. Correct me if I’m wrong but I do not find it right to mourn on some person who we didn't even know.

There is something that I do not understand in our parents and grandparents, why is it that they find it so hard to send a message on the cell phone? You merely have to follow a set of lousy instructions to get there. We did it; and it is not like we have a divine technologic power that enables us to see through the software. There is nothing easier than sending a message but they find it so hard to understand that “create a new message” means to create a new message. This is not a generalization but a critique of the minority who suffers from SMS syndrome.

Here is a habit that I find hilarious in our current Lebanese society. Whenever someone is at our house for a visit they stay for an hour or so. The first 30 to 40 minutes are intense with conversation but then the dialogue starts to move slowly until it reaches a total stop, and that is when the visitors signal that they will leave. As they get to the elevator door, accompanied by the host of course or else it would not be honorable, all subjects start flowing and the most interesting debate takes place all of this and the visitor is holding the elevator door open completely ignoring the fact that other people might want to use the lift. This much interesting debate finds no end, until it is ruptured by someone banging against the elevator door on a different floor screaming and shouting. It is at that moment that we realize that we were holding the elevator for about 10 min. We let the elevator go as the visitor is too ashamed to go in it and face the rage of the person who started claiming his right from the top of his lungs.

Let us not forget that in a few years we will be like them, in this judgmental and narrow minded fashion.