My Little Ramazan - Day Four

Sat 14th August 2010

The fourth day of Ramazan for all eagerly participating Muslims and the first day for me, a non-religious but very curious wife of one of the said participating Muslims. I am here. I am still alive. I have gotten through my first ever day of nil-by-mouth activity and I am still in the land of the living.

So, today I managed to: serve my son three meals without pinching anything, visit a friend for coffee and refuse the coffee offered to me, get over the 2o’clock hump without any refreshments whatsoever and remember to refrain from licking my fingers when cleaning up a spilled yoghurt. How then, bearing in mind my long list of tremendous accomplishments, did I manage to fall at one critical hurdle? How could I permit such a disaster to occur? Where was my commitment, my loyalty to the cause? What on earth was I thinking?

I licked an envelope.

I couldn’t help it! The friend I went to visit this morning has an adorable new baby girl and I was simply completing the customary gesture of a congratulatory card. But as soon as I’d done it, as soon as I’d licked the offending paper trim, I realised my mistake. I sat at the kitchen table waiting to be struck down. I cowered under what I imagined to be the dark storm clouds of God’s fury, waiting for a lightning bolt, an earthquake or perhaps a monsoon. But then I remembered I don’t really believe in God and that even if there is one, He’s probably got better things to do than slate me for licking a fancy pink envelope. Or so you’d hope.

Then I realised I had a whole new envelope-related problem. The taste! Uh! I’d forgotten how disgusting the glued edges can taste. And I couldn’t even have a little drink to get rid of the bitterness in my mouth. Not even a sip of water. Now that was the real tragedy. I had to wait until 9o’clock tonight – or 9.05pm to be precise – when the Scottish sun decided to disappear behind the Moray Firth.

But I did it. I waited. I developed a mouth like a stale Ryvita but I did it. My two year-old, much to his excitement, was allowed to stay up an hour and a half later than usual just to give me something to do other than fantasize about a slap-up meal and a gallon of chilled water. I think we watched his entire collection of Bob The Builder DVDs, coloured in every single page of his colouring book and even invented a fantastic new game: count the tassles on the ends of the rug and make them dance to a variety of improvised songs. I suggest you go out and get a rug with tassles. It really is a pleasant way to pass an afternoon.

So when the golden hour came I have to say I was far more interested in a huge glass of orange squash than any food you could have offered up. I ate because I felt it was kind of necessary, but I drank because of the sheer thrill of it. As I write this now I feel adequately fed and watered and the revolting envelope taste has vanished from mouth and memory. Mustafa, when he got home from work, explained to me that if you happen to lick your fingers or anything else due to a genuine slip of the mind, then it is actually acceptable. I will therefore not be struck down for the envelope incident. Good to know.

And tomorrow – finally – Mustafa is not working a double night shift so I might actually get to sit down and discuss some of these Ramazan shenanigans with him. He’s on a roll after four days and I’m a mere beginner so we should have some notes to compare. I’ll just have to make sure we don’t put the notes in an envelope. Thank goodness blogs are paperless.