Karma and Valentine's Day

This is a photo of Clinton and I at a fund raiser in Washington DC in 2003. Actually Clinton is shaking my hand in gratitude because I informed him of the large bugger in his nose. His hand was sticky, but I had some sanitary wipes in my pocket. We talked a little and he gave me some advice and I told him he ought to lay off the carrots for a while, and maybe avoid getting stuck alone in the men’s room with Howard Dean.

Anyway, it was Valentine’s Day, and I had to leave early to catch a plane to New York for a fashion show. So I rushed back to my room at the Watergate Hotel, changed, grabbed a sandwich at the deli, and caught my limo to the airport.

But the limo driver said he had to make one quick stop at the United Arab Emirates Embassy to pick up a few more people.

Photo by DVIDSHUB on flickr

When we arrived at the Embassy, a sheikh (looking similar to the one in the photo) and his female companion wearing a beautifully sequenced veil adorned with gold chains sat opposite me. I immediately felt uneasy because I knew the presence and aroma of my Memphis style shredded pork shoulder sandwich might offend them. Their eyes immediately confirmed my suspicion, but I was hungry and took a big bite while sounding out my pleasure. The woman said in broken English, “That is disgraceful!” I replied spontaneously, “What? It’s just a sandwich; you’re the one who has to hide under a veil.” (rude, I know.)

But I talk with my hands, and the swing of my sandwich let fly a piece of pork that landed on her lap. She screamed and stood up to rid of the offending meat, and her head hit the ceiling, then her face came crashing down onto my crouch. Somehow the gold chains on the top part of her veil over her forehead got caught in my fancy belt buckle. She was stuck, and yelling something in Arabic. The sheikh came forward and reached for my crouch to help her untangle it but I brought my hand up for him to stop and warded him off with my sandwich, "I may eat pork, but I’m not gay, please stay away." (not that there is anything wrong with being gay, or for that matter, being a sheikh, or wearing a veil.)

Just then, four other sheikhs came into the limo, and there was a loud exchange as the first sheikh explained in Arabic why his companion was on her knees with her head in my crouch. The limo shoved off, but we were all still in chaos. I tried to relieve the tension by suggesting we all just calm down, let me finish my sandwich, and then we can think this through. The sheikh said, “No finishing sandwich!” So I asked if someone could hold my sandwich so I could try to fix it and they all just glared at me, no one wanting to come near the pork. Then I asked the girl if she could hold it and she shouted, “No, get it away from me!”

Then at that moment, the sight of the female between my legs sunk into my mind. And along with the vibration of her voice against my loins, something was triggered within the depths of my manhood. A process I knew may be difficult to stop. So I quickly put the sandwich on the shelf behind me and tried to untangle the chain. But I couldn't, it seemed impossible. And the way it was jammed, I could not even remove my belt. I said to the girl, “Can you just take off your veil?” She looked up into my eyes and yelled out, “NO!” Then her eyes widened as we both realized I had become fully emancipated.

With the sandwich no longer in my hand, I had nothing to ward of the Sheikh, who quickly made his way to my pants and worked to jar the chain loose. He failed and sank back into his seat exasperated. The girl had lost all energy to hold her head up, and relaxed it on the only place she could. I had to distract myself, so I looked back at my pork sandwich but it had spilled open and become uneatable. The sheikh looked at me and said, “You know, eating pork is foul. Each time you eat pork you are doing harm, and become in debt to Karma! A debt that has to, and will be repaid!” Just then, answering for me in spite and irony and for all to witness, my spasms forced the girls head slightly up and then down as if something was trying to escape from a hatch below. Exhausted, the girl released a surrendering sigh and the sheikh resigned to an incredulous stupor.

Trying to divert attention from the spectacle, I said, “I can cut the belt off, does anyone have a knife or a box cutter?” I guess not, because the sheikh just stared at me with daggers in his eyes. So I suggested I take off my shirt, and put it over her head so she can unveil and get a better angle of it. They seemed to like the idea but had doubts if I would somehow be able to steal a peek at her face. So I offered to even blindfold myself to make double sure there was no way for me to see. One Sheikh actually had a blindfold in his pocket, so we were in luck.

The girl was still quite liberally struggling under the shirt when we arrived at the airport. My mouth had contoured into an expression of pain as I desperately battled to suppress the flow of life trying to find a way out. The Sheikh yelled out the window at two airport policeman for a knife. The cops did not understand his broken English the first time, so he opened the door and yelled again, “We have a knife!” He should have said, “Can we have a knife” or “we need a knife.” Because all the police saw was a car load of angry Arabs, and me sitting there blindfolded, apparently in pain, and wearing a wife-beater tee-shirt--not to mention the added confusion of a girl on her knees working on my crouch under a shirt. Needless to say, none of us made our flights that day…

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Moral of the story: The more constraints we impose on ourselves and others, the more indebt we become to Karma. And that debt must always be repaid.