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My Foreign Friend Kept His Kid on a Leash for Over 15 Years
I’m still not sure if it was the right thing to do
I have an eclectic group of friends from all over the world. It’s probably the result of a ceaseless search for novelty. The kind of insatiable hunger that can never really be fulfilled, no matter how hard you try.
But part of that desperate search often leads to those itty bitty tidbits of unique delights.
The strange. The beautiful. The incredible. The unexpected.
This is the story of why my good friend Amir kept his kid on a leash for over a decade.
Strangeness of the Unknown
My friend is your typical 40-year-old. An odd sense of humor. A loving wife. A doctorate in optomechanics. A quasi-healthy addiction to extreme long-distance running with an aptitude for explaining how it’s normal to sh*t yourself during the process.
Much to my horror.
Also, he loves kids. Not in a creepy way, of course. In fact, he’s had a few over the years.
But people from different cultures often have a different way of looking at the world. Their modus operandi may be just plain weird to you or me. It’s something that can take a bit of getting used to but is incredibly world-changing, I assure you.
Sweet and Sour Soup
Some of these cultural differences are amazing — like the innate over-politeness of certain societies.
Or horrible — like the innate desire to rip through red lights at all hours of the day seemingly trying to run over chubby ex-pat Canadians.
But we learn to take the good with the bad. The sweet with the sour.
That’s why I love sweet and sour soup. Not the garbage imitation at home, though. Sorry, Mom, your version of Suan La Tang just isn’t as good when you’ve tasted Valhalla’s sweet nectar before.
Amir’s favorite soup is a bowl of yogurt. No joke.
I once went to a potluck dinner with some friends and created the most Canadian dish I could make.
