Every now and then in life you have one of those moments of triumph. One of those moments where you, a humble human being have the opportunity to show the world just what you're made of, and you're made of good, tough stuff that can handle anything. A few days ago I had one of these moments.
I was on my home on the metro. The car was fairly busy and there were many of us standing. As we approached a stop a woman left her seat to walk to the door and another woman took her place. In the seat the first woman had left a hair pin. The second woman handed it to me, to hand to the first.
I knew I had to act quickly. I reached out and tapped her on the shoulder. No response! What to do? I tried again and she continued to walk away from me. I can not overstate the pressure I was under at this moment. I felt completely unprepared and incapable of dealing with the situation. And then, before I even realized what was happening, before my brain had time to to think about what my body was doing, out of my mouth came the words “
min fudlik” (“please”). Miracle of miracles, I came up with an appropriate Arabic word!
Even better, I said the exact right word and said it clearly enough that she had understood! She heard me. She stopped walking, and turned around. Success! If ever there was a moment in life I wanted to do a fist pump, this was it. (But I held it in).
In the end, the hair pin was not hers and I handed it back to the other woman. But that doesn't really matter. What matters is that I communicated. In Arabic! Maybe it was a small triumph and not really a life changing kind of thing.
Min fudlik is about as basic as it gets. But you have to start somewhere. And it felt good.
