Surviving the Service: the first of what will undoubtedly become a series

The concept of a "service"

Beirut, for its apparent lack of public transportation, has a very practical means of moving about called the service—pronounced the French way, aka "serveece."

Basically, a service is just like a regular taxi, except it picks up and drops off multiple people along the way. Think bus, if a bus didn't have a predetermined route, and if by "bus" you meant a car built sometime back when the Soviet Union was still a thing and seat belts were an optional feature.

The standard price for a service is 2,000 Lebanese pounds (LL), or $1.30. If you're going far, or if the driver can tell you're foreign and clueless, they can ask for "serveesayn"--two services, or LL4,000. Or if you are really, really clueless (not that that has ever happened to me, hohum), or it is late and you just want to go home, you can get sucked into paying three or four services (LL6,000 or LL8,000).

Here is what you do in order to catch a service: you stand on a street corner, a service slows down and cracks open their window; from the curb you tell him where you want to go to see if it's on his way; if yes, you haggle the price, and you either jump in or get left on the curb unceremoniously because you're too stingy. This process tends to make me feel like a prostitute as portrayed in tacky cop shows.

A service is the best place to practice your Arabic, because they won't usually speak to you in anything else. One of my proudest moments here so far has been the time where I had a five minute conversation about the weather with a service driver. I couldn't understand 80 percent of the words he was saying, but I am fairly certain we talked about the weather. Services are also where you're the most likely to hear heated discussions about politics. Basically, my goal here is to reach a service-level of fluency in Arabic.

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Now that I have established the fact that services are their own little fascinating universe in Beirut, I can now move on to assert the following fact: services can get really, really weird. Which is why it is with great pride and emotion that I will share with you my first, and in all probability not my last, weird service anecdote.

Last week, I was all over town trying to get the proper documents stamped and signed for my visa. After a pretty grueling morning arguing with obnoxious French civil servants, I hop in the back of an empty service to head back to Hamra (the neighborhood in which AUB is located).

I sit right behind the driver, rather preoccupied by the bureaucratic labyrinth I have to navigate, when I notice the driver is staring at me intently in his rear-view mirror.

(Note, the following exchange is conducted in Arabic and broken French by the driver and French and broken Arabic by me)

Driver: There's something wrong with your teeth.

Me: Huh?

Driver: Your teeth. They're not straight. You need to go see a dentist.*

Me: Oh, my front teeth? Yes, one of them is a little broken, but I'm fine. I don't want to get it fixed.

Driver: No, you really need to get them straightened. It's not pretty.

Me: No, really, I'm good.

The driver then starts laughing, and I just shrug it off as a somewhat rude conversation with a rather clueless person. The driver then starts asking me something repeatedly. At first, I think it is how to say "straight ahead" in French, but after he insists for five entire minutes, I realize that he is asking me to stick my hand out in the air in the space between the two front seats. A little confused, I comply. The driver grabs my hand, and slaps my palm hard, twice. And laughs again.

I quickly pull back my hand, not really knowing what to think. Was this an awkward Lebanese high five? Did I need to be chastised for my monstrous dentition?

The driver, still laughing, now asks me to put my foot forward between the two front seats "so he can slap it too." I refuse, trying to convey in Arabic:

"I don't know what your deal is, but you are weirding me out, please stop immediately."

Unfortunately, the closest thing I can come up with with my meager vocabulary is a stuttered "you're not very nice" ("Inta mish latif jiddan"). This, of course, makes the driver laugh even more. So much for biting, boundary-setting remarks.

"You're right," he says. "I'm very mean. Here, take this."

He begins fumbling below his seat, and pulls out a foot-long, clear plastic ruler, which he hands over to me.

"Hit me."

It now becomes very clear to me that I have accidentally entered an S&M service and was not communicated the safe word. I grab his ruler, in case he changes his mind and decides he wants to hit me again, and put it well out of his reach on the back seat. I'm not quite sure at this point what to do next, when I realize to my relief that we are in Hamra within walking distance of campus.

"You can drop me off here," I say, stuffing LL2,000 into his hand as I practically jump out of the car. "Merci ktir, thank you so much!"

So the moral of this story is: I am the kind of moron who will thank a guy for stopping himself short of busting out a riding whip in his car before noon.

*For those of you who can't seem to remember my apparently very noticeable dental deformity, here is the clearest photo I have found to illustrate what my egregiously crooked front teeth look like:

Weird photo aside, I'm still not sure why I happen to be in dire need of reconstructive surgery, but I am apparently very far from fulfilling the essential beauty criteria here. Let's hope I can find myself someone willing to overlook my hideousness. Insh'allah.