February 15, 2007

On Gun Sales and Car Alarms

They say gun sales are up in Lebanon. I wouldn’t know; I’m not in the arms industry (although I did look for that label when blogger asked me to profile myself, but arms industry did not feature on the scroll down list of options).
They make it sound like it’s the US over here, where you can go out and buy semi-automatic guns over the counter. All I ever have seen going over the counter here are hunting rifles.
Nobody has offered me anything yet either. I assume you must be affiliated to certain political parties to be in the market for guns. Or maybe to any party.

Now if guns were readily available and for sale, I would be in the market for a nice RPG. And the first thing I would do is get up in the middle of the night, just when everyone is nice and snug asleep in their warm beds, in deep dreams, and aim at that filthy Mercedes that had its car alarm going off sixteen times last night. Sixteen times! And no owner in sight to turn it off. No, we had to listen to the entire cycle of all nine intricate alarm sounds before it stopped. Sixteen times! That car would be the first one to succumb to my road rage with my newly acquired RPG. I am all for gun control, but this Mercedes really pushes the odds.
I can just see myself, standing on the balcony in the middle of the night, in my jimmies, with this RPG on my shoulder.

Not that a car alarm has any use. There is no police on the street at night, (other than those patrolling with their alarm lights on. Did anyone explain them yet what the use is of those alarm lights? Don’t they teach this at the Police Academy. Is there a Police Academy here?) and nobody is going to check out the alarm on anybody else’s car.
Besides, by the time you figure it is your car they are tampering with, you got to slip on some clothes, push the elevator button, wait for the elevator because the thing inevitably stopped on the ground floor, wait for it to come up, get in, wait for it to arrive on the ground floor, by which time the thieves are already in the Beqaa valley with your SUV. That’s where I hear they take all stolen cars.

The only time the car alarm goes off in this town anyway is
1: when it thunders (which it did the entire night last night),
2: when a cat jumps on the hood of the car (lots of street cats here, especially around the bins),
3: when a police Harley drives by (yes, Lebanese police ride around on Harleys) or
4: when a tank drives by.

Believe me, it has not yet deterred any thief. Now an RPG would.

2 comments:

Hamze said...

I thought you had a militant side. :):) It took a car alarm to bring it out.

They could use you down south. As an .... Embedded journalist :):)

Thiruppathy Raja said...

what an exciting experience!/Hilorious! Delightful! True!

Car For Sales