It’s half seven in the evening. I’m done until 1am and I’m not sleepy so I’ve found a steakhouse that doesn’t check the broken Saudi contact tracing app. I thought I’d treat myself to a full moon steak. The driver’s lost bag from yesterday got through today after all that stress. The best explanation I got was that security in Dubai couldn’t compute that most of a woman’s bag was taken up with a crash helmet, and so they suspected foul play and held back the bag to search it thoroughly. The guy at Tabuk was a bit of a sleaze as well. Her had it in his cupboard and he started by pretending he didn’t know it was there, before asking loads of weird pointed leading questions about Jordan. I hope he didn’t fuck up the crash helmet banging it about looking for booze or bombs or wherever, as helmets are extraordinarily expensive at this level, and they’re useless when bashed.
Ha and I just ordered my steak expecting a nice dinner and a load of last minute pick-ups came in. My phone is still buzzing with them. Oh what a surprise… Here I am in the slow restaurant with the soft piano music and a non-alcoholic mojito, sampling the local borek and the T-Bone and I’m probably gonna have to shove it all into my fat face and jump back into my whip to sling a load of marshals around this low rise young tatty desert border town.
Time passes. It’s half twelve. I’m sitting parked next to Dunkin’ Donuts in the Tabuk airport lot. There’s one Dunkin’ in the parking lot and another in the terminal. Donuts are big business here in Saudi. The very first outlet I saw in Riyadh was a Dunkin’. As a point of comparison, I find this place weirdly reminds me of Utah. Impolite Utah without such a good selection of root beer. They are all prudish and believe something fervently and don’t drink booze and are addicted to sugar and they live in a desert full of red dust. The thing they believe out here is a touch more credible than the stuff that Joseph Smith pulled out of his great big hat, but in Zion they are much nicer to you and they don’t try to kill you when you get behind the wheel of a vehicle.
I’ll be back into the airport to get 3 more people and then 3 hours sleep once more. This place having no booze? I can cope with that. If it was caffeine free as well I think I’d have booked myself a flight to Italy by now.
…
And I’m awake again and at the airport!!! Boiiiiiing. Those final three had a weird drive because I decided not to top up the caffeine knowing I would have precious sleep straight after. I basically drove them winding down. Lost the ticket to the car park… Thankfully they like me in the booth.
I’ve never been so happy to see a Starbucks. I’ve never been happy to see a Starbucks.
Morning! Here we go again!
AlBarclay 