Sunday, September 19, 2004

Blogistan's First Embassy

Here in the capital of this fair country (Pakistan) there's always an embassy a stone's throw away. You can't drive more than five minute without bumping into the official offices of some country or another, all complete with razor-wire fences and machine-gun toting guards with mirrors on sticks. It's enough to make any Islamabad resident jealous!

As Blogistan has become a real community with it's own citizens, I had the idea to turn my humble home into its embassy. My daughters Abez and Aniraz are game for the idea. Afterall, there are lots of advanages to living in an embassy.

1) You can host WILD parties and the cops can't harrass you if your music is too loud or your guests throw Diet Pepsi bottles and juice boxes into the neighbor's yard. (Some of us do this anyway. Like my upstairs neighbors.)

2) You can drive like a bat out of Hell with a dozen local cops in pursuit, beat them home, close the gate on their faces and just laugh at them, 'cause you're in another country.

3) When the paperboy comes to collect, you can pay him in your own currency, freshly printed on your PC.

4) When the gas and electric companies try to cut you off for lack of payment,your machine-gun-toting guard can send them running for their lives.

5) You can sell visas to Blogistan. A regular visa is US $500, but it takes 5 years to get, so an expidited visa is US $50,000 and only takes 5 minutes.

6) If you get angry at your neighbors and start hurling bricks at their house, and shattering the windscreen of the police car that answers their call for help, no problem. (I read about an African diplomat's wife pulling such shenanagans a few years ago, and have fondly imagined doing the same ever since.)

7) Tax collectors don't even bother to ring your doorbell.

8) Beggers are afraid you will pour boiling oil from the turrets, so they don't ring the bell either.

9) You can be in Pakistan and not in Pakistan at the very same time: very usefull thinking for my "blue funk" days.

10) You can make your own holidays. I'll have Annual National Day, every month and Founders Day where my loving minions give me chocolate and imported gifts. I'll have two Labor Days where you aren't supposed to work, the American one and the communist one!!! I'll have Ambassador's day, celebrated again with chocolates, flowers and perfume. There are endless possibilities here. Of course, when I celebrate these events I'll book the ballrooms of Islamabad's exclusive hotels, and when they try to collect, I'll use some combination of items 3,4 and 8 to ward off all bill collectors.

Bloggers, the list is now open to your comments. Share the love, share the madness.
Why would it be great to live in your own embassy?