The hose

is the first thing I see at the Dubai International Airport. After being awake, or partly awake for more hours than I have fingers to count on, I'm convinced I lost Sunday. I think I flushed Sunday down the loo, somewhere over the ice fields of Greenland at 38 thousand feet. Oops. So, bleary eyed, and somehow missing an entire day, I found myself in an airport that would shame most American malls in extravagance and chrome, so it didn’t occur to me to dig my camera out in the bathroom, even though the hose definitely deserved a moment of vanity. First impressions. Gotta love them. But not to fear, folks. Luckily, there's a majestic potty-sprayer at work too.

That's right. A hose. To spray your junk with. And at work this afternoon, there sure wasn’t any toilet paper left. So it was either spray or nothin’.

So we spray.

The trouble is, the hose closely resembles a gizmo many of us have on the kitchen sink. It's agressive. It's wet. More wet than say....pee. We might aptly re-name it the Arab Potty Super Soaker 2000. Then without toilet paper, what's one to dry off with after the blast from beneath? And how do you surface from the bathroom, without looking like you fell in the toilet? Not to fear. In the smoky haze of the office, I'm sure no one noticed the water marks all over the seat of my pants.