Top 11 Signs You Are @ ADC Convention

I love the ADC convention and always have a grand time meeting people, mingling and learning. But there is nothing perfect; all you can do is plan and hope for the best. Here are few signs that you are at an ADC convention or at any other Arab gathering.

1. Your registration is messed up, either the name is misspelled or the number of tickets is off. An intern will go out of his/her way to fix the problem and make sure your “Dr” title is visible from a mile away.

2. You are constantly told you are a VIP Registrant, even though you know you are a plumber by profession and a political scientist by training. On top of that your wife hates her lousy luck and curses the day she met you. No apologies to Joe the Plumber.

3. You are speaker for the convention, but nobody seems to know who you or what you have actually accomplished. Ralph Nader is the exception, everybody knows who he is even the hotel staff celebrate him.

4. There is a creepy old man stalking you wherever you go and by Sunday he ends up making you a marriage proposal and buying you a home that you do not have to share with his first wife who is way too sick to satisfy all his wildest dreams.

5. There is always that girl that tries too hard to get attention from all those successful bachelors yet somehow out of shape males. Like a female friend of mine who refused to acknowledge that she knows me in front of a potential husband out of fear he will think she is “easy.”

6. In order to get a press pass, few individuals pause as media moguls to get a free access to the various convention events. Such fire crackers; writers and journalists who have actually never written or published anything. In fact few of them seem not even know what personal email is, but that does not stop them from acting like kingmakers; king is a substitute for poop.

7. It’s not a party until this guy shows up with a clear, but simple agenda; drink, party and shags anything that walks. But that’s not all, this person instead of seeing himself as a pervert he truly believes he is being selfless by claiming to be offer a service to the “oppressed” Arab females by being open minded.

8. The frustrated idealists who thinks that we as community are being lazy and in order to be saved, we need to listen to his/her spiel about the latest round of conspiracy theories that put Libertarians to shame.

9. You know the food will be great even though there is complete ban on all pork products in the hotel kitchen, but drinking liberally is still ok. Cash bars extend as far the eye can see—Muslims give the bartenders the most business.

10. Various government agencies act for the weekend of the convention like they value what you (the Arabs) have to say about lousy services (i.e. a botched water boarding, a deportation gone bad, wiretapping gone bananas)

11. The wacky convention attendees who claim to donate thousands of dollars to ADC, but yet are not able to pay 10 dollars to get into the party. While on the subject, seriously ADC, can you ask convention attendees to keep their name badges visible at all times?

[Tarboush Tip: Yousef, Jehad]