I hate young people. I hate nothing more than their wrinkle-free, care-free faces. I hate their open attitude towards life; their aspirations to become “someone” in the future; their unfair advantage over old people when it comes to organ transplant priority lists; and their dominance of pop culture and the movie industry. I’d rather watch a romantic comedy about two old people falling in love at an orthopedic clinic, or doing it in a nursing home after their families abandon them.
I wish that all the young people would spontaneously combust, particularly my fellow Egyptians.
I should probably mention that I’m turning 18 tomorrow, 11/11/11. However, I like to believe that my being young, while perhaps ironic, should be disregarded because… because I transcend age—that’s why.
I suppose old people deserve a great deal of the blame for how their offspring turn out. We don’t have the Western concepts of self-dependence and whatnot. Parents here do NOT push their kids out of the nest. In fact, it’s more like the parent birds are shackling their young to the nest to keep them from going to aviation school. There is no such thing as an individual too old to live with their parents. The only acceptable reason to move out is when the young bird ties the knot, and even then the parents will take it upon themselves to build another nest, adjacent to theirs, for the lovebirds. And to keep the young minds from entertaining the thoughts of freedom and independence; the parent birds threaten to give the young bird’s new address and exact landing location to a snake, thus making sure they’ll never amount to something on their own.
Having been present on Earth for a relatively short amount of time I have had the misfortune of living in the herd of young people, so I speak from experience. The following depicts what it’s like for the young generations of aspiring terrorists living in the modern Arab world.
To explain why I especially despise young Egyptians, I’ll disclose my earliest dread of the day when I step foot onto my school’s campus.
Traveling packs of young females merge together, and once the dust and the high-pitched greeting rituals subside, dishonesty prevails. This is the literal translation of the interaction: “You look pretty,” the alpha female of pack A says.
“Oh no, your eyes are the pretty ones, that the reflection of my image onto them makes me look pretty,” says alpha female of pack B.
But this is what they really meant: “Ah girl, if you were pretty, I wouldn’t be seen socializing with you, I wouldn’t risk the comparison.”
“You’re ugly, too.”
Dishonesty, and not necessarily deceit, is an inherent trait in Arabs (this is the part where I should fear for my life). We are incapable of speaking our mind and acting upon it. People will literally accept a family request on Facebook; which has them listed as someone’s sibling while in reality, they’re wishing they’d contract flesh-eating bacteria.
My next dread is Mister or Miss Ziodoanalyst, young folks whose sacred mission in life is to psychoanalyze the oblivious masses, according to Zodiac signs, which is their “science.” The Zodioanalysts, as I have dubbed them, are more stroke-inducing than a diet of corn dogs dipped in ice cream with butter sticks on the side. The conversation goes down like this:
ZODIOANALYST: “Nour, you’re so… so… I can’t find the word for it! When is your birthday again?”
I lie and tell him it’s January 18th.
ZODIOANALYST: “I knew it! You’re such a Capricorn.”
For 30 minutes we bicker about whether or not I fit the Capricorn personality profile, until I tell him that I was really born in November.
If my day isn’t bad enough, then walking to my bus stop should tip the scale. First, I encounter the young and lazy sex offenders. I call them that because they’re simply too lazy to harass me. Young cab drivers just whistle at me and gesture for me to come to them, because they can’t be bothered to effectively harass me properly. Then there is the average Joe, (or Mohammed in this case) who can only be found loitering with his “men” in front of a kiosk, whose structure you could barely see since it’s bearing three times its size in chips and snacks. Mohammed will just blow smoke at passersby and feel his penis enlarge with every puff. Their topics for discussion are limited to Cristiano Ronaldo, John Cena and my breasts (in that order).
The next reason is actually your fault, Westerners. I realize we gave you Islamic terror, but giving us the Twilight saga series in retaliation is just cruel. I blame you for having a successful entertainment industry, which has made millions of Arabs blindly copy you. You’d be surprised to know that the most prominent and dominant TV channels in the Arab world are English, playing nothing but American movies, series, sitcoms and talk shows. My TV is basically your TV a year after you’ve seen it. This leads to the if-you-squint-your-eyes-from-a-distance-you’ll-think-I’m-foreign syndrome. Its symptoms are: a) pretending you can’t speak/write/read a word of Arabic; b) swearing that you had blue eyes and blond hair as an infant; and c) trying to and failing miserably at integrating both cultures at once. This particularly evident in their sense of style. Since almost the majority of women is veiled here but still wants to look hot, the end result is: imagine Britney Spears wearing an open Abaya, basically a long black robe, and a scarf that covers 60% of her hair. This way they abide Islamic traditions, but in a sexy way!
And if god forbid I choose to converse with someone, their sheer resistance to logic and reason is always there to greet me. I have met less than a handful of Arab girls whose deepest ambitions extended beyond getting married. The ideal scenario for the Arab girl is a) get a college degree, which would help her qualify for a decent marriage; b) get married to a man who is richer and a tad old than her, because you can’t elevate your social status by marrying your equal, duh; c) Procreate and to pass on her defective genes. By the age of 22, she has peaked as a human and can now peacefully die in her sleep after spending the compulsory 30 years in a loveless, sexless marriage, resulting in half a dozen of brats (yes, the sexless rule is broken but it’s strictly to make babies—people, focus!). On the upside, 20 years later when she is marrying off one of her many daughters, her future son-in-law could pay her the “Wow and I thought you were her Aunt, not her mom” compliment. Ah, the possibilities!
The whole world is under the impression that the Arab world is a closed community where relationships are curtailed by strict religious rules and whatnots, but that is not the case. I wish it was. I’ve invested a lot of energy trying to invent a device that consists of two large metal electrodes that would both “mildly” shock and simultaneously push people apart, in order to weaken social ties, but it can’t be done
Unfortunately for me, after the recent uprising in Egypt, everyone now knows they have rights and get “a say in things.” I can’t believe that even the 19-year-old who’s asked what Al-Qaida was in class gets a vote! She’s a goddamn disgrace; she doesn’t know our leading terrorist organizations or its founding fathers (some of which were Egyptians—so you can understand my outrage).
So the fact that they all intend to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections offers me the same comfort as an unplanned pregnancy.
Ah, democracy, how I loathe you!