Exposed (part 3)

Arrival
The concert was to start opening the doors to everyone at 6:30pm.  I left home around 6:20pm.  And, I had a few errands to run.  Fill gas.  Check.  Small notebook to jot notes down.  Nope.  Sunglasses?  I didn’t have sunglasses either.  Best place to pick up sunglasses and notebooks?  Jewel Osco.

The notebook wasn’t too big a deal, but I needed to buy sunglasses, and choosing them was no easy feat.  I needed to get a pair big enough to cover some serious real estate on my face and a lot of them looked plain stupid.  As I started looking for sunglasses, my mind wandered to the MTV spoof that was done on the Spider Man movie when he was designing his costume (hmmm, not gay enough).  Finally, my eyes settled on a pair of Oakley ripoffs circa 1996 (the year I graduated high school), and the decision was made (ah yes, just the right amount of gay).

I eventually arrived on the scene at 7pm.  I immediately pulled up my hood, put on my sunglasses, and strolled out of the parking lot.  Everyone else was in short sleeves and jeans, and here I was, totally in a BLACK hoodie turned inside out, black jogging pants, dark black sunglasses on, a black bandana, and black basketball shoes.  This would definitely draw attention.

So I got in line to get in the door, and the person ahead of me was none other than a Riyadh as-Saaliheen student (who shall remain unnamed), chaperoning his sister.  I kept my head down, waited behind his back, and then kept going.  Did he recognize me?  Nuh-uh, so off I continued.

I finally got to the seating area, and there was already one brother on the mic doing his comedy routine (brother Ahmed, our host for the evening).  I thought I’d grab a seat close by, but then realized that this was a sisters section.  I looked out further and all the eye could see were sisters EVERYWHERE.  Sure, there were brothers, but if there was ever a time for a ring in the desert analogy, it was here.  So I went back and asked the volunteers how the area was set up.

As it turned out, the left side (from the perspective of the person facing the stage) was the sisters section, the middle, which was the majority, was for families, and the right side was for brothers.  It seemed, however, that the sisters had even spilled off into the brothers side.

I made my way over to the “brother’s side” and of course, I caught a lot of weird stares from people.  Not surprising, of course, although kind of ironic that the hijabi sisters were giving a guy who covered his head stares.

I sat down, pulled out my notebook, and the notetaking began.