Or is it a small country?

As my regulars would know, I hail from Byblos, Lebanon. I was recently there for a short vacation. I was at the barbershop, getting a haircut. This story recounts the events of that fateful day.

My barber is also a good friend of mine. We were catching up, and I was telling him about some of the things I do online, I mentioned flickr and my weblog. The discussion turned to nicknames, for some reason. What they mean, how people chose them, etc… I was just ticking off some nicknames which I knew the story behind, or the reason why their owners chose them… Which brings us to the fun part…

I should note that short while after I unmasked my online self, a fellow lebanese blogger, rampurple, also introduced herself to everyone. She mentioned the meaning behind her nickname.

Back to the story.

Me: “So, it’s a screen-name from gaming, some real-life nickname they have, bla bla, yada yada, for example, this one lebanese blogger calls herself RAMPurple, which stands for…”

Barber: “R. A. M. (her initials) and her favorite color is purple.”

Me: “What the fuck? How did you know that?”

Now, barbers naturally know lots of people, this guy even more so. He knows everybody. But a Lebanese blogger living in kuwait?! WTF?

So, he whips out his cellphone, and sends her a mysterious SMS, telling her ‘Tempest’ says hello. An amuzed, and confused reply is quickly sent. She asked me a couple of times after that to explain how this whole thing happened…

Small moments like that really brighten up my day. They make a huge, anonymous, indifferent world a little warmer.

Posted on Tuesday, July 5th, 2005 at 10:05 pm and filed under Lebanon, People, Friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.