Place Your Bets

“I bet Mr. Kennedy is going to win this round…”

My younger brother turned to me with a slightly pretentious look, “No, the Undertaker is going to win, you’ll see...”

We continued to watch his beloved WWE Smackdown show.

“You know, this is all an act…every move is planned for…” I stopped myself mid-sentence and thought, “Was it necessary to disclose this piece of information? Did I ruin my younger brother’s love for phony wrestling?”

Fortunately, my concerns were silenced, “No no Erzulie, it’s all real! One time, the Undertaker had blood all over his face and…” He continued to tell me all about the gory details of the Undertaker’s evil deeds.

“But I still think Mr. Kennedy will win.” For some reason, I sometimes enjoy being a wet blanket of an older sister.

“Etrahneen? You want to bet on it?”

“Yeah why not? If Mr. Kennedy wins, I have dibs on your pack of Nerds…”

He tilted his head and mulled over what I said, “Okay…” he agreed.

“And if the Undertaker wins, I am going to give you half a Kuwaiti Dinar.”

“Bes? That’s it? I want five Kuwaiti Dinars Erzulie.”

“Khams dananeer? Yifta7 Allah…Five Kuwaiti Dinars? No way kiddo.”

This brings me to the main point of my post. Long ago, bets were mostly based on emotions rather than on material gain. I remember that they were solely centered on one’s primal satisfaction by humiliating the other end i.e. “Trahen 3ala kaf/s6ar/bux?” which is another amusing subject to ponder over.

Now, I never thought that a nine year old boy would be dissatisfied with half a KD. That equals a handful of cheap bubblegum and a bag of chips, both of which my mother will frown upon and immediately discard only to replace them with freshly sliced fruit.

When I was my brother’s age, I never thought to ask for something above 1KD. All I had was my treasured ceramic piggy bank that was stuffed with the “abandoned” coins I discovered around the house as well as the random ¼ Dinars that I folded intricately before slipping them down the container’s thin slot.

“Why not Erzulie?” He pushed.

I used my favorite hoity-toity response, “Because I’m your older sister that’s why,” I replied before thinking to myself, “And because it’s the friggin’ end of the month…”

MP3's...

Spin Doctors - Two Princes

Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner

White Town - Your Woman

Youssou N'Dour & Neneh Cherry - Seven Seconds

at 11:46 PM