"Separate but Equal" night was last Friday after disaster relief training. Dear Blog Reader, you may ask - what does "separate but equal" mean? One may remember it from tenth grade American history class as a phrase applied by the Supreme Court in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case as a semantic justification for segregation. But "separate but equal" night was something different for the backrowballers; since the girls wanted to play Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture, and the boys were obsessed with having Halo Night: Part Deux (see Ashot's post), we reached a compromise. There would be segregation of girls and boys doing their separate activities in one location, and there would be no intermingling between the sexes. This would be a simulation of almost all guy/girl encounters I have witnessed as a Muslim - girls one one side, guys on the other.Although I kept calling the night "Separate but Equal," I was pretty sure that everyone realized that it was a joke because the majority of the people attending were not Muslim. For them, guy/girl segregation was as weird as say, roasting and eating their pet dog.
I should have seen it coming, though. The warning signs were all there, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20. It was B.Bo's responsibility to bring all the controllers and extra TV so they guys could play on teams (I know, I know, how did I agree to such a dorkfest?). B.Bo was late, and the guys, mainly Ashot and Tahir, got really agitated. Tahir yelled, "Okay guys, if he's not here in ten minutes, we're playing Halo at my house." Ashot looked like he had failed out of medical school and his favorite dog Sparky had died. He moped in the corner and became more emo than Death Cab for Cutie. Farrah, realizing the imminence an emo explosion amongst the boys, tried to damage control by enticing people to play Mario Cart on her Game Cube. However, no one gave a flying shit about "girl" games besides Farrah and Emily.
Miraculously, by the grace of Allah, B.Bo arrived with a flat screen TV and 7 controllers for the XBox. What followed was a crazy mess of wires, shuffling of electronics, and a complicated circuitry of two televisions that only 8 video game obsessed dorks could have set up. The girls (plus Habib and Jack) set up Trivial Pursuit on one side of the room, and the festivities officially began. On the board game side of the room, there were three teams: Farrah and I vs. Abby/Sarah vs. Jemily/Habib. There was nothing noteworthy going on on our side of the room besides Sarah showing off an extensive knowledge of arcane facts.
On the boys' side of the room, there were two teams - B.Bo (and his two minions, Matt and Mike) vs. Tahir, Ashot, and Elvis. B.Bo's team was really quiet because they were that good. The other team, not so much, as the resounding sounds of their four letter expletives (mainly from Elvis) reverberated throughout the room. What was noteworthy, however, was the fact that the Trivial Pursuit folk did not interact with the Halo gamers at all except when they deemed it was time for a break from the addictive, magical land of Halo.
At one point, during a break session, Tahir and Ashot congregated in the corner and whispered aggressively to each other. The nosy side of my personality perked up as I was sure they were gossiping about something important. Tragically, I then realized that they were just talking about game strategy. Lame!
The weirdest incident occurred near the end of the night when Abby needed Tahir to move his car so she could leave. Tahir would not put down the controller for fear of B.Bo's team killing him. Abby waited in the car for 10 minutes before everyone agreed to press pause so that a minor errand like this could be completed.
After the evening ended, Farrah and I decided, never again will there be a Halo night: Part 3. It left me wondering about who really my friends were as I had never seen such a dark side of these people before. It was as if these fellow medical students transformed into zombies, who only had eyes for human flesh eating.
--By Mariam, who wonders if the following analogy is equivalent - Boys : Video games, Mariam : Red Lobster/Olive Garden.
6 comments:
LOL
That was really funny! Its funny, cause its true! We do tend to go overboard with Halo. When Tahir came up to me during the night to discuss his strategy idea, I said "great! that will defenetly work!", only after did I realize that the strategy was exactly the same as before, I go inside a circle, Tahir protects me from B.Bos allies, and Elvis flies around in a ghost, desperately trying to destroy B.Bo, we always do this exact strategy and it never works, no wonder we always lose to B.Bo. Darn you B.Bo, one day, one day you'll fall!
1) I stopped reading Ashot's comment when he went into the video game jargon.
2) My hindsight is better than 20/20, but my regular vision is better than 20/20 too. This is due to my many secret superpowers.
3) Even passivly mentioning roasting and eating a dog is just not cool.
4) Ihe boys would have played Mario Cart if they didn't already know I would beat them at it. I bring blue sparks like woah.
5) You may say, why didn't you beat the guys at their own game of halo? Well, readers, that wasn't an option as I was not invited to play. Plus, Halo sucks. (ok, maybe I wasn't invited to play because of the many times I complained about Halo being an awful awful awful game)
6) Mariam is pretty and a perfect hostess. She will make her future husband very proud.
one, you were invited to play, and two, you don't have any super powers, you can't even walk through walls!
I said they were secret superpowers. You don't know that I can't walk through walls, even I don't know - my powers are that secret.
you did so good, Mariam, in telling the story of that night! I can definetely imagine! especially when you said "Ashot looked like he had failed out of medical school... " and "Tahir and Ashot congregated in the corner and whispered aggressively to each other... " oh, so funny! I will tease him when I get there :)))
Thank you Marianna! It was really one of the most disturbing things I have ever experienced. When you are here, never EVER agree to Halo night. If by chance there is one, you can come hang out with the girls - we rarely turn into single minded, crazed zombies!
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