On Random Misexcerpt from my not so Everyday Life

Picture this.

A jungle. A jungle buzzing with wild mosquitoes and vicious, blood-thirsty dragonflies. There’s lots of them that the minute you swat one away, a gang of its bullying friends come back to pick on you. There are elephants too. The big, hairy type, not the pink ones in your overactive imagination. Sulking heavily in circles. Trees among trees that you can’t see further than 5 meters. And a murky swamp, where the elephants like to cool off in the blazing summer heat.

No this isn’t an Indiana Jones movie (Tantarantan, tan ta taaaaan)

This is real life.

Ok ok you got me already. In real-life there is also professional Thai elephant riders, and lots of tourists from every corner of the world and a stand for cooling beverages sold at touristically-insane prices. And a stamp on your hand for riding the elephant. Yay!

The tourists ride on a comfy couch tied to the back of the elephant, as the Thai rider sits on its skull and “drives” the elephant using elaborate sounds of “Mei” like a goat and negs unto its skull.

Us Jordanians have an unfathomable if not illogical pride. We always want to show off that whatever thing professionally done can be inherently accomplished by us complete Jordanian novices because, well, we’re Jordanians.

So as other sissy tourists sit on their comfy couches with an umbrella struck upon their heads, me the brave Jordanian I am insisted that the Thai rider let me drive the elephant on my own using elaborate body language of pointing my fingers to the jungle and moving my index and middle finger in a walking motion.

Thai rider happily obliges. (5 minutes break off work, who wouldn’t?)

So I ride at the elephant’s skull. “Hey this is easy methinks. Har Har Har”. (I felt like being a pirate for 5 seconds) The skull somehow jabs into my left butt cheek with every left step the elephant takes, and to the right when it takes a right step. It was a titsy bit uncomfortable to say the least.

The rider disappears into the jungle.

Being the attractor of trouble and unhappy coincidences that I am, my elephant decides to make a slight change in its route out of the jungle path and caress a branch of greenness with its happy, swinging trunk.

Elephant stops.

Me: Emmmmm
Travel mate: Errrrr
Me: Emmmmm
Travel mate: Errrrr
Me: Emmmmm
Travel mate: Errrrr
Me: It’s not supposed to do that, right?
Travel mate: No!
Gulp

I only started panicking when I remembered an article I read about elephants in “musth” Which is a state where some snot blocks the elephant’s brain and they go into a fit of rage because of the blinding headache it causes.

Me: I’m screwed! Biddy mama. (I want my mom)
I started humping its skull like the rider did and making goat noises.

Me: Meeeeiiii, meeeeeeiiii, mishan Allah meeeeeiiiii, Dear God Meeeeeiiiii .Move bitch!!! (slapping its empty skull repeatedly while still humping the head)

To no avail.

The toothless rider comes back beaming with an ear-to-ear smile and directs the elephant back on track.

Me and Travel Mate: Kuss ukhtak! (Fuck you)

The End

DISCLAIMER: No large mammals or Jordanian tourists or Thai riders were hurt in the production of this blog post.