…you start using Afghan insults against other expats.
…you know the pricing scale for contract killings in your city.
…you don’t scream when you find a toenail in your bread, you just pick it out.
…your phonebook includes “stalker #5” and “harasser #9.”
…you find it kind of gross but not at all weird that the hotel reception clerk is staring at full-screen photos of dismembered corpses on his computer when you check in.
…you know how to walk in a burqa like an Afghan woman.
…you refuse to let anyone put a flash drive in your computer for fear of porn download viruses.
…you’ve been accused of running a brothel and of being employed at a separate supposed brothel.
…you get hit in the face by a malfunctioning semi-manual washing machine on the spin cycle and fall on the floor laughing madly while clutching pairs of underwear to your chest.
…you look at this A Softer World and think, ‘that’s a plausible scenario.’
…you have a list of people to whom you’d love to send phony Taliban night letters, and that list is four whole pages long. Single-spaced.
(Because this list needed to be updated.)
.