YOU KNOW YOU’RE PERSIAN WHEN…
--All the other kids bring peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches to school, you bring a Kohtlet sandwich and you have to explain to everyone what it is.
--You’re 28 years old and your mom
still calls you to see where you are at 9pm and at least three times every hour after that.
--You tell your parents you’re going
out, they whip out a list of questions (in Farsi, of course) like: “Where are you going?” “Who’s going
to be there?” “How many guys, how many girls?” “Do I know their parents?” “Irooni an?”
--Your non-Persian friends come over your
house and they’re awed at how much food they’re offered and wonder why your family taroufs so much even when they
say they aren’t hungry.
--Your mom taroufs the shit out of you
and feels like a failure if you don’t finish all your food and go for seconds, thirds, or fourths. If she could, she'd
probably tie you to a chair and funnel food down your throat just so that you won't be hungry.
--You get a craving for doogh (with salt
and pepper, of course).
--Your FOB radar (FOBdar) can spot a FOB
a mile away.
--Non-FOBS HATE FOBS and
make fun of them (their accents, the way they dress, how they study 24/7 and never party) with their other non-FOB friends.
--FOBS don’t understand why non-FOBS
act a certain way (party too much, drink excessively, dress provocatively).
--Your parents and grandparents always
have some sort of weird, ancient remedy they learned in Iran in the 1950s that they’re
convinced will cure any illness.
--You translate all rap songs into Farsi
for laughs (ex: Mano to club metoonee payda conee)
--You want to smash the Persian guitar
(tar) anytime you hear someone playing it. Fuck that ethnic shit.
--Your parents force you to continue going
to school…not just for your education, but also so that other Persian families will respect you more and it’s
better for your marriage.
--You’re late for EVERYTHING—parties,
weddings, even funerals.
--A relative or family friend always mentions
how big you’ve gotten and they remember you when you were this (they illustrate with their hands) tall,
even when they saw you two weeks ago.
--The same relative or family friend always
asks if you’re getting all A’s in school, and of course you say “yes, of course” even when you’re
a straight C student.
--If you have mehmoonee on Saturday
night, your mom begins cooking and preparing on Monday and still wakes up at the crack of dawn on Saturday and is still cooking
when the guests show up.
--Mehmoonee comes over and your parents
turn into the fakest people on the planet. The same goes for the guests.
--You have mehmoonee over, everyone brags
about how smart their kids are, that they’re in the honor society, what sports they play, etc. And of course, it’s
extremely exaggerated.
--Mehmoonee is over and there is an infinite
supply of pesteh, anar, rollet, ghand, and the chai is flowing like beer at a frat party.
--After dinner, the men immediately relax
on the couch in the living room, waiting impatiently for their tea, watching either football, soccer, CNN (or all three at
once) while the women are in the kitchen busting their ass washing the dishes and the kabob sticks and talking about how they
cook adas pohlo and aush.
--After mehmoonee finally leave (or after
they were supposed to leave, but stand at the door for half an hour still talking), the hosts spend the rest of the night
talking about everything that was talked about earlier, what their guests wore, how they styled their hair, etc., and the
same goes for the guests in the car on the way back home.
--If it ain’t designer, you ain’t
wearin it.
--If someone calls from Iran or your parents
call Iran, they talk so loud that the neighbors can hear them and they talk for at least a couple hours.
--Also, after your parents finish talking
to relatives in Iran, they force you to come talk to them as well even though you have the biggest American accent on the
planet and they probably can't understand a lick of what you're saying.
--You have at least one female in the family
who dyes or highlights her hair blonde.
--There are about 15 Persian rugs in your
house and an abundance of gold furniture and accents, all from Italy.
--There is at least one Benz, BMW, or any
other German car in your garage, and the rims are always dirty because some Persians could care less about cleaning and servicing
their car, they just want to tell other Persians that they drive a Mercedes.
--If your parents find out half the shit
you do on weekends, they’ll lock you in your room for life.
--You know all the cuss words in Farsi
(i.e. jende, beesharaf, cos kesh)
