The Forty Things

Hey everyone, check this out, did anyone ever see this before?

Go ahead & take a look, seriously.

No really, it's so useful. I mean this ought to lift up your spirits with the current state of the job market.

You think I'm kidding? Okay, skip the article & read the comments section...

People are all so psyched!

Some people even seem to have been rescued from suicide upon reading it. (there might be some who weren't, but I guess we'll never know how many)

Okay, seriously seriously now... what the **** is this ****?!

It's not the article itself that is making me this incredulous, I mean the article is what it is: half a joke, half commercial nonesense (it is after all, an article on Bayt, not Forbes!) and you expect nothing more from Bayt.com, nor from an article entitled "Forty Things To Do When You're Fired"!

It's the comments that really got to me.

I wanted to see comments that take the article as what it is: a joke. I only found one comment mentioning laughing about it.

Everyone seemed to take the "advice" of the article seriously.

Seriously?!!

I've been through that feeling of being unemployed before, while having responsibilities to worry about.

The feeling of panic slowly building up till it reaches your mouth, like water pouring inside a box with a rat inside and... too serious, mate, tone it down

Okay, so what I'm trying to say is that if you actually were fired or about to be, this article would drive you up the wall with its combo of desperate humor and useless pop culture advice... it's almost depressing.

And how people seemed to take it is even funnier than the article, in an even more desperate and depressing sense!

The Fun Road Game of "Bingo & Oops!"

Since I 've begun to frequent the streets of Cairo more, and especially now that I've returned to it, I've struggled to determine if my fresh impressions of it have any real base lying at their core, or whether they are just illusions...

I was mainly concerned with the striking impression that the number of unveiled women is on the rise in Egypt.

So to objectively determine whether that supposition is true in the strictest scientific sense, me & my wife came up with The Road Game of "Bingo & Oops!"!

(circus music)

The rules of "Bingo, Oops!" are fairly simple, and those familiar with other road games such as "Slug-a-Bug" and "Zitch Dog" will find it just as simple. Here's how it's played:

If you spot an unveiled woman and yell "Bingo" first, you score a point. If you spot a munaqqaba woman and yell "Oops!" first, you score a point (two points if it's after dark).

If you make a mistake (like for example, you yell Oops! at the back of a woman clad in black... then as you drive past you find out that her face is not covered) you lose two points.

And here are some additional rules that stem from the higher purpose of the game, and were not in any way made-up on the fly to strike out points made by another player:

1- Bingos yelled at sightings of unveiled girls below the age of ten years old do not count. No... make that thirteen years old... In fact, make that 15 or 16 years old!

2- Bingos yelled at sightings of unveiled women who are clearly not Egyptian do not count. Example:- Filipina maid: does not count. And no, her father can't have been Egyptian!

Now I'd like to invite all of you who reside anywhere in Egypt to play along, and help yourselves assess the social makeup of Egyptian women today, and I'm sure that if you live in Cairo, you'll appreciate the endless fun the game will bring to your drives through its infamous traffic.

Have fun, and drive safely!

Warning: To be in compliance with rules of other games that might be created in the near future, this game gives you no warranty to stare at people on the street. A glance should suffice to determine whether a Bingo, an Oops or nothing at all is in order. Prolonged staring puts you under the risk of losing your recently scored point, in addition to any penalties incurred by other games and possibly crashing your car.

Post-Script by the Post:

I know that I am touching upon a certain subject, from a certain viewpoint and in a certain manner that is very likely to offend many good people in the good Country of Egypt.

However, since I am personally acquainted with this viewpoint, I've known it to be suffering for a long time from an urgent need to be expressed... And so I've dedicated myself to its expression.

Furthermore, I understand that most of the people who had been offended by laying eyes on me

-and to those I'd usually say, look the other way... though not today-

may not have been quite as offended had I not been ridiculous...

but I think the gravity of the matter called for my satirical behaviour.

For I'm sure you will agree with me, that nothing can be quite as serious as a good joke.