Moose of all Trades 2

This was a hard task in one significant area: finding the gas truck. Waiting for an hour at the headquarters of my new employer – al-Qimmeh Agency for Liquid Gas Distribution – my potential workmates never actually showed up. So I quit. On the spot. After pacing the streets of Amman’s Khalda district for another hour, waving at every Toyota Dyna pick-up in sight, I was delighted when one pulled over and its driver, Mohammad, agreed to hire me for the day. 

 

Seconds after I assumed my new position, a head popped through my passenger’s window. “I have been waiting for a gas truck for four days now! Please, just one cylinder. Please. It is just an exchange.” Mohammad assured the desperate customer that his wish will come true in a matter of seconds. An awkward silence ensued before a confused look from Mohammad reminded me of the terms of my job. I jumped out of the truck, threw the heaviest cylinder over my shoulder and began to follow the customer. “Don’t forget the wrench,” yelled Mohammad as he stuck the tool out of the window. I bounced it on my palm a couple of time before proudly slipping it in my pocket: Finally, 11 years of mechanical engineering are going to be put to work. 

 

I returned to the truck gleefully clutching my ever first tip. And I didn’t even have to change the cylinder. Mohammad greeted me with: “Are you going to write about the hike of gas prices? You know it is going to be nine dinars next month!” My casual remark about a liquid gas cylinder costing just two dinars as recently as five years ago   opened the flood gates of socio-political analysis of international oil prices and its repercussions. “Why can’t the bastard who is driving a 5,000cc car take the hit from the rise in international oil prices?”| Mohammed asked, not unreasonably. “After all, the asshole has already paid 100,000 JDs for the car, so is paying 20JDs instead of 10JDs at the pump going to make a big difference?” I limited my side of the conversation to smirks and head shakes; as much as I like Mohammad I can’t take or dismiss the chances of him being mokhabrat.

 

Our next stop was at a villa in Khalda. “Make sure you pick a clean cylinder,” I was instructed. “Those housewives can be really anal. One dent here or there and you would be making another trip.” Thinking of extra tips, I offered the lady to change the cylinder for her but she refused, in an extremely unfriendly way. “She was afraid to show you where her gas cylinders are installed,” Mohammaed explained. “She probably has them outside of the house and she thinks you may come back later and steal it.” Good times.

 

Riding shot gun in the spacious pick-up cabin, legs stretched, window rolled down, with the discussion of the world oil-economics interrupted by the occasional delivery, I started thinking over possible NOX resignation drafts. But my reflections were interrupted by a musical tune – a never-ending mind-numbing plain-torture melody that was impossible to tune-out. “Be grateful that on my truck the speaker is installed under the hood,” Mohammed said. “But after a couple of days, you won’t be able to hear it anymore.”

 

Fortunately, my break-out-of-noise-hell text message arrived shortly after. My editor wants his brilliant and hardest working coffee-fetcher back at the office. Without a gas cylinder, either.