License to Kill

I estimate Corniche El Mazraa to be about a kilometer long, which if you divide by 5 meters you get room for 200 cars on each side of the road. On a Friday afternoon there are over 400 cars parked along the Corniche and none had a parking ticket on its windshield, so I assumed it was safe and extremely lucky for me to park right in front of Abou Ahmad for a quick bite. However, as I walked out I found an Eric Estrada writing me a ticket. "Why me?" I cried cautiously not wanting to push any wrong buttons considering I don't even carry a valid driver's license. Out of hundreds of cars, I was the only one being cited because... "you didn't leave your flashers on."

That was when a lot of Lebanese mysteries became clear to me. You can get away with murder if you leaves your flashers on. When downtown property owners tried pleading their cases against Solidere with judge Eido, they always hit the brick wall when confronted with "But did you have your flashers on?" Nabih Berri knew the power of flashing lights when he controlled the source of all our lights, that's how he's still shining even though his Amal movement has faded away. Shaker El Absi must have had his flashers on when he fled Naher El Bared leaving our mighty army dazed and impotent like superman under a blinking red sun.

I thought I had Beirut all figured out, but this town never ceases to intermittently amaze me.