Free I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One on TV by Maz Jobrani Page B

giving me good financial advice because he had repeatedly called me his friend. What do you do with three Moroccan rugs when you’re living in a small bedroom in the corner of your mother’s condo? You try to sell them to your friends and family—that’s what you do! For the next six months, I drove around Los Angeles with a stack of Moroccan rugs in the trunk of my car. Anytime I was at a party, a picnic—any social gathering, really—and there was the slightest opening, I started pushing those rugs.
    â€œMy friend,” I would begin, “you look like you need a good rug. Come look in the trunk of my car. Which two would you like to buy today, my friend?”
    Unfortunately, being from the old country, most of my relatives never fell for this trick.
    â€œI am not your ferend. I am your modder. And you live in my house, so eh-stop terying to sell me your eh-stupid rugs.”
    In the end I just gave the rugs away as gifts and made awhopping zero dollars on my investment. I would’ve done better if I’d invested in Lehman Brothers. “My friend, which three subprime loans would you like to buy?”
    Grandpa’s Dirty Mouth
    Along with being disingenuous salespeople, another thing you learn about Iranians is that we’re incredibly nosy. I would get into the building’s elevator and immediately the interrogations from the eighty-year-old neighbor women would commence.
    â€œAre you Jobrani’s son?”
    â€œYes ma’am.”
    â€œHow much money does your fadder have?”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œIs he vorth a million? Ten million? Vhat’s your best guess?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œI’ll take dat as ten million. Does your modder have fake boobs?”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œI’ll take dat as a yes. Have you ever had an STD?”
    â€œThat’s none of your business.”
    â€œI’ll take dat as a yes. How many people live in your house?”
    â€œAre you with the census?”
    â€œNo, I’m just Persian.”
    It was strange to live surrounded by so many Iranians. Growing up, most of my friends were white, so I had been the most Iranian kid on the block. In Los Angeles, suddenly I was inferior. The Iranians of LA were so entrenched in their culture that some of them didn’t even speak any English. I spoke Persian, but sometimes I would run into older Iranians who would use a word I didn’tunderstand. I’ve learned in life that if someone uses a word you don’t comprehend, you just need to nod confidently and agree: “I know exactly what you mean, my friend.”
    In the 1990s in Los Angeles, one of the people I dealt with on a daily basis who spoke little English was my grandfather. He came to America in the eighties to live with us in Marin. When the family moved to Los Angeles, we packed him in the truck with the rest of our stuff. For him, it was as if he’d returned to Tehran, since everyone in Westwood spoke Persian and he could just walk around visiting families and spend hours reciting poetry with other old Iranians. He was between eighty and ninety years old. I give a range because we really didn’t know how old he was, nor did he. If you were born in Iran in the early 1900s and moved to America, you tended to lose track of your birth certificate. Not only did we not know how old he was, we didn’t know his birthday. We would just throw him into the mix every once in a while when it was another family member’s birthday. Often, he would end up having four or five birthdays a year, which is how he lived to be 273.
    Grandpa was a great source of inspiration to all of us. He was retired but somehow kept himself busy each day. He awoke early and, like an old-timey gentleman, put on his three-piece suit and fedora hat. He would take the local bus to Santa Monica, where he would go shopping at the farmer’s market. He knew everyone and everyone knew