Plushness

As I was dreaming of my lover telling me poetry, who by the way looked nothing like Nezar Qabani, I heard the noise of sirens. Yes, they must be the sirens of his heart, it has caught on fire—what a true romantic! The sirens soon sounded like a traffic jam, and naturally I thought yes, he’s in his car as he speaks to me.

Two minutes later, I was downstairs in my pink puppy PJs (courtesy of Um Sheba may God give her a long and healthy life) and mom’s abbaya, and hair that should say Viletta. In hand was my mother’s Toyota car keys and my Lexus car keys and damning our neighbors for buying the same brand cars as ours as I was sure it was their car that woke me up while they were still dreaming. And there they were, Nike the driver and the enthusiastic Chandra, the new staff addition who has been assigned the dog of all house work—car washing.

Nike, and the more experienced of the two was explaining to me that the car alarm of my mother’s car went off as soon as Chandra tried to open the door with the key. I guess it was the morning breeze that hit me and quickly I noticed that the key in question was in fact not my mother’s car key!

Sheba (with still foggy eye sight): Nike, hatha Lexus key
(Nike looks baffled, Chandra just confused)
Sheba (again): Hatha Mefta7 mal Lexus
(Still the same look from both)
Sheba (very calm still, and half still dreaming half awake): 3a6ny mefta7
(Chandra hands it to Nike, and Nike hands it to me – I guess they’ve installed a hierarchy)
Sheba: Shoof hatha mefta7 sayarti mu sayarat mama.
Nike: Oooh (speaking to Chandra now) hatha muftah mal Sheba sayarah mu mama!

I was back in bed instantly, but could not manage to go back to sleep because I realized that I paid approximately twice the price for my car for it to be misrecognized as its inferior wannabe.