“It was just a stupid ten dollars.”

Minutes after I finished last Friday’s blog entry and jumped into the car for my foray down to the Dead Sea, I stopped at a gas station about 2 miles away just outside of Madaba. The gas gauge was lurching toward the big ‘E’ and I did have to make the 50-miunte trip down to the Lowest Point on Earth, so one should be full for the crazy trip down, down, down from Mount Nebo to the Dead Sea.

This was my first chance to fill up the gas tank since I got the car a few weeks ago, and there was something momentous about saying to the attendant, “Full, shukrun!” Julianne ran in to get some water, needed a little money, and I watched that tank choke down the gas. As it burbled over the top, the meter read between 24 and 25 JD. I knew the attendant would do his best to make it to that next dinar’s worth of gas. So it comes across the finish line of 25 Jordanian dinars. Usually I try and have exact change, but I just had big bills from the ATM. I handed the attendant a 50 JD bill and a 5 JD bill. (A 50 JD note is worth about $75.) He doesn’t have the change (a simple 20 and 10-spot!) and has to go back into the office for my change. Julianne comes back, glad she has change for me and I hold it in my hand waiting for the rest of my change.

The attendant comes back, smiles, and gives me a 20 JD bill and 5 JD bill as my change. I politely said, “I gave you 55, so I need 30 JD back, thank you very much.” He sheepishly reveals he doesn’t know much English, and I said a couple words in Arabic, obviously as knowledgeable in his language as he is in my mine. I point to the amount on the gas meter and said, “hamzeh, hamzeh” for 55, but he doesn’t quite know what I mean, so I grab a 5 JD out of his hand to make it 30.

Maybe I didn’t think that through! A couple other attendants gather ‘round as we try and explain to each other in our native languages why we think the other guy is cheating the other guy. One of his buddies grabs back the extra 5 that I snatched, and then one other grabs the change Julianne had given me for the water. The voices get a little louder in pitch, the gestures develop in a bit more of a baroque style, and now we are yelling at each other. No one there can speak adequate English, and none in our car can speak adequate Arabic to say that I had given him 55 JD for 25 JD of gas, so I deserved my 30 JD change—plus give me back the other money from the water transaction!

Since this is going nowhere, and we find ourselves yelling now, I accuse them of being cheaters, get in the car, slam the door, and leave swearing I will never come back to that gas station.

Okay, so they got 6 JD out of me that wasn’t fair. It was just a stupid ten dollars. But surprisingly the incident really stayed with me for awhile as we headed through Madaba and then down the windy road to the resorts at the Dead Sea. So much for relaxation! So much for peace and serenity!

Obviously I was bothered by the swindle. Lubna had warned me that attendants often do not give correct change—hence my usual tactic of offering the exact change. But I was bothered by a bigger fact—I still do not know enough Arabic to really handle crises, either real or minor like this one. I have taken up Arabic both autumns I have been here, and learned some fun words, and enough for cute expressions and a little showing off, but I am still not able to take care of a situation in the best way.

It kind of sat in my stomach all day as I was reminded that this experience still provides downs beside the ups. Now, I am not naïve enough to think that any place can provide me with a “down-free” existence, but you get to be this age and you think you can handle gas station transactions!

On Monday this week I met with a representative from our branch of the Arab Bank. I have had few dealings with them since I opened the account 2 years ago—and each encounter was frustrating since they do not seem to be big into the service side of this banking arrangement.

I met with the rep to ask about on-line access to my account and for an application for a bank credit card. He seemed flustered that he had to provide some help, and then smiled and said, “Oh, we cannot allow a credit card for a non-Jordanian.” I inquired as to why and he responded with that twittish answer, “That’s the policy.” I asked him to explain the policy, and he said that the bank couldn’t allow unlimited charging if you weren’t a native of Jordan. I said I would gladly allow them to put a limit on my charges. “Oh, we have a policy that we can’t do that.” I reminded him that I was stockpiling my salary in his bank, and why couldn’t he enforce a very strict limit on the charges, and they could debit my account. We kept in this rat’s maze of a conversation for awhile until I said, “I would tell your boss that if you cannot provide me with a limit and a simple request, I can move my money elsewhere.”

A good week for being steamed over kinda silly things…

The steaming continued… I started getting emails from a few friends about the speech President Obama planned to make to school children this week. It seemed incredulous that this was a controversial issue! Why wouldn’t any parent and school system welcome an opportunity to hear an elected leader speak to them! You could talk about it as a parent, in a class, trying to figure out the message, the points—I mean, hearing someone speak does not mean you are voting for someone! Anyway, one friend wrote, “Today, the President of the United States is addressing the students of our country. My Superintendent is NOT PERMITTING ANYONE in the district to allow students to watch this address. I downloaded a copy of his speech so I could see what could possibly be SO OFFENSIVE that people would not allow their children to listen to the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!. Of course there is NOTHING anyone could question. How have we, as a country, gotten to this point?!!!!”

Another friend wrote that her district had sent a note home telling parents that the students would be watching the address and to contact the school board if they had concerns. This friend asked her elementary age daughter what the key points were in the speech and the young American responded, “1) stay in school because an education will help you achieve whatever you want to do in life and 2) set goals and work hard.” The friend said she told her daughter that some children were not permitted to watch the address so that kids would not be brainwashed, and the girl said, “that’s stupid.”

Now if you, dear reader, are getting steamed at the topic, well, sorry.

I saw Laura Bush on CNN supporting the idea of a president addressing school children and railing against partisan politics clouding the issue. Interesting! Another friend offered, “This whole thing infuriates me… it’s not like the President is going to go on the air and encourage children to smoke crack. Plus, he’s the President. Respect the office.”

Yet another friend inquired to his hometown school board as to what they decided to do, and the board wrote him that they allowed students to opt out with a parental consent form, and as my friend editorialized, “which I think is itself a little silly, because it lends credence to the idea that this is somehow controversial to be addressed by the President, any President, about working hard in school.”

So, lots of people have been steamed in the last week. One of the new teachers was fixated on the oddity that he was issued one board eraser, and then when it broke, he found there were no more for him to take. This elegant Jamaican man was steamed and said, “You mean there is just one eraser per teacher? There is no more budgeted than that???”

But what with board erasers, extra Visa cards, or a lousy $10 misunderstanding, it has saddened me about the reaction to a President addressing the children. We have no problem with children watching about Michael Jackson ad nauseum, or Michael Vick, or the Octo-Mom, et cetera, et cetera, but a chance to better understand the American government, and even partisan politics—we want to shield them from that?? Wow, that’s more than being steamed…that’s depressing.

So I decided to play a little game with myself—hmmmm…what is something I can enjoy a full head of steam about, but it’s really pointless, not like erasers in the classroom or a lighter wallet, or parents steadfastly keeping their children uninformed.

And I came up with a great thing that just gets me upset: squeeze mustard bottles.

I’ll tell ya what—someone had better make a mustard container that doesn’t squirt out yellow water before it gets to the actual mustard! I get all excited about a little Gulden’s spicy brown mustard and then it comes out all watery….ew…okay, it steams me so much I demand that the mustard be pre-blended to my specifications, AND it should also whiten my teeth!