When Staying Silent is Because You Have Nothing to Contribute

What do you do when you're in a room full of Arabic speakers and they're throwing out baby girl name suggestions for one of the pregnant woman in the room?  Particularly when she's leaning towards an Arabic name and most of the ones you are familiar with have already have been raised: Noor, Malak, Malakah, Jasmin, Jasmina, Aisha, Layla, Leena, Sabina, Rana, etc.

Apparently smiling, nodding and saying which ones are particularly nice isn't good enough.  H and I did just that and the father-to-be accused us of holding out on him by 'hoarding our baby name list for ourselves.'  It didn't cross his mind that maybe we just don't have a baby name list.  We're not saving the name Seven a la George Costanza.  Salaam.

Paris Loves Me

During my last trip to Paris, I was standing on the Champs Elysees waiting for Cartier to open.  It just happened to be the day of Francois Hollande's inauguration and the street was covered in police and there were snipers atop of the Arc de Triomphe.  As the clock ticked past 10:30, I started to wonder if the store was going to delay its opening for the inauguration.  Meanwhile, the police standing nearby were starting to worry why I was still standing on the corner.  In French they demanded,

"Why are you loitering on this corner?"

"Umm, I'm waiting for Cartier to open."

"Hmm," they looked at one another before deciding, "ok, that's ok.  Carry on." 

First I get accused of stroller theft / child forgetting then I get viewed as a terrorist threat for 'loitering' outside of Cartier.  It's not like terrorists shop at Cartier...oh wait, Gaddafi did.