After 6 o'clock Mass I went to pick up some shirts in Sanaiya, actually one roundabout away from the Sanaiya (the industrial zone) roundabout, near the oryx roundabout. There is a long row of shops and then a wall about a block long before I pulled up to the curb in front of Al Waseem Laundry, which is right next to Al Arabi Laundry, both of them sharing a wall. I could see from my Honda into the brightly lit shops and the two laundry workers in each of the shops looking at my Honda while they pressed down on the clothes they were ironing. The Pakistani in Al Arabi, the friendly one with whom on one occasion I hadn't felt shy to speak in what little spoken Arabic I know, looked a bit dismayed that I entered his competitor's shop. My wife and I had originally sent our laundry to him. The last time was before summer vacation. When we had returned we went to a neighboring tailor shop and he motioned me to come in. He had one of my wife's dresses that we had failed to pick up before we left on vacation.

I felt that I had betrayed him in some way, snubbed him. Actually, when my wife and I had gone to Sanaiya the last time to have the shirts ironed I did not see the two Pakistanis and went into Al Waseem instead. My wife, who communicates impeccably in broken English, asked where "the other guys were", the two Pakistanis. "On holiday," one of the laundry workers said. This seemed plausible because the Keralites are celebrating Onan. It didn't occur to me that I was not talking to Pakistanis but to two Indians.

After having paid for the freshly pressed shirts, the Indian in Al Waseem said, "Come Al Waseem!" I felt rather sheepish leaving Al Waseem, making sure not to look at the Pakistanis in Al Arabi.