OH-SUM!

Place: Bedouin Camp
Time: After Dinner
Scene: A group of travelers sits around a campfire with their Bedouin host, Sheik Zahid.

Action!

Sheik Zahid to the group: "You know, I am looking for a wife. Who is free?"

Group: Uh... silence.

Pat (part of the group, one half of the "mature" couple on tour): These girls are! (Points to me, Freda and Bea)

Sheik: You know, I learn from you all (the travelers passing through his camp) over the years one thing. I say "OH-SUM!" He grinned a toothy grin and gave two-thumbs-up.
 
...

Somehow, I ended up being cornered as the Sheik's next wife.


?
Oh-sum! As a person who takes things very literally I was flabbergasted! Was this a joke? What should I do? I didn't want to be rude!

But then again, when push came to shove, there was NO WAY I was getting married.

Not that night. Not to the Sheik.


But, he did offer me a very handsome dowry:
"What do you want? I will give you three Jeeps, one racing Camel (which are super expensive, who would have guessed? ... as in about $100k!), horses, goats, sheep, a gray mule, chickens, a cook, a house in Wadi Rum, a house on the beach in Aquaba. Gold, silver... Oh and my parents and family would move out there and we would all become Muslims.

Riiiiight.

Decidedly, this was all fun and games. (But dagnab, why don't American men make offers of marriage like that???)

And then there was much laughter over sugar-coated roasting marshmallows. The Sheik complemented me on my roasting technique.

"This is a very good woman."

And when my fiance lit up a cigarette I firmly put my foot down: "No smoking!"

And he grinned and repeated "This is a very good woman. See how she cares about my health! Oh-Sum! (Two-thumbs-up)" And then he took a long drag on the cigarette.

And before we all turned in for the night I told him "Make sure you brush your teeth!"

And he said "Oh-Suum!"