Al-Qaeda In My House

A small sound pierced through the calm of the muted room. Beep, Beep, Beep, and then vibrations from the pager… a message flashed “this is gamma leader, we have situation on alpha niner zero”, my hands automatically went on the keyboard I typed “ Copy that gamma, delta get your hawk squad at double time, over”.

We were back in action. I sent out another message, this time using another computer to let my boss know that I was being called for and when you have exalted in God, Unit, Core Country all that follows is secondary. My message to him was a polite:

“Dear Sir,
Due to unexpected situation that has arisen in an undisclosed strategic location, I am being called for, leaving now, will let you know how it goes and keep you posted, apologies for the bomb shell, but you know how it is.
All the best”

And I was on my way, adrenaline rushing, blood getting warmer, excitement, anxiety, and fear all settling in. Fifty minute train ride was like infinity, then a 10 minute car ride. I pull in the driveway; my kid was standing in the driveway shaking his head. As soon as I got out of the car, he said “Mommy’s not happy, mommy is sad”. I said “its ok son, daddy’s home, all will be fine”. I gave him a kiss and together we walked into the house.

“Thank God you are home, we have circumstantial evidence that we have been invaded INVADED” “Honey by who” I was cut off by a “shhhhh” she said. “I know you desi men lack in this field but this is my dear, is mouse dropping, MOUSE DROPPING, MOUSE DROPPING” “mouse dropping?” I asked, she shook her head and said mouse feces. “Oh I see, honey this is not an emergency, you could have called an exterminator or a terminator?” “I knew you were going to say that” she replied and went on “We have kids in the house, you just don’t call an exterminator, the job requires a small hammer and you want a demolition ball, nice going Mr. Jutt Saab” she went on “I am going to the grocery store to buy some mouse traps, do you have any preferences Mr. Army Man?” “Sweetie, I still think that we should just get an exterminator and get it over with once and for all, I don’t have experience in this sort of thing”. “Excuse me, whatever happened to the I bench press 250lbs, and like to shoot my AR-15 like a big boy” she mimicked with a Texan drawl “ I am serious this is a serious situation” and I went on to explain why our Foreign policy is flawed and results in giving us Americans a bad name in the long run, and how Russians can go on killing their own or seeking revenge and no one blinks an eye, or leaving their sailors in a submarine and let them sink. No one condemns them, and here we have a grave situation, we have been invaded in our own home, in our own back yard and are now being questioned whether too much force will be considered lethal, or capturing them will be a violation of Geneva conventions. All the more being questioned by the very people that were attacked. “Great country” I said to myself.

She bought the tools of destruction, and I went on to RTFM and then switched to “Plan, build, operate” mode. A lot of recon missions, scoping plan of attacks, back out plans, what if scenarios were played out, my home office now looked like a smoke filled war room, like in the movie Black Hawk Down. After much planning I took out my overalls put on a shower cap, breathing mask took out my gun just in case (hey you never know). I placed a few in strategic locations where these infiltrators had left evidence, and called it a night. Next morning I rush to the glue traps, first one empty, second one empty, third one empty, fourth one “Aha, there you are you miscreant ha I gotcha” I yelled. I went back, put on my overalls, the shower cap, breathing mask, gloves, the works gun on the side just in case the bastard is bluffing and is a super mouse that can lick the glue off and come attack me, I am not taking any chances. I put him in the garbage, I then put the garbage in three more bags just to be safe and ensuring that he wont escape I tied four different knots on each garbage bag. Luckily today was the garbage pick up as well, so winds of change were blowing in my direction, I got out and decided to stand watch with the garbage, “I am taking no prisoners I said to myself”. 10 minutes later I hear the garbage truck pulling, the garbage man looks at me weird, looks at the bag and asks in thick West Indian accent “What’s in this bag mon?” “Just garbage” I replied. “So why are you standing here with it, why didn’t you just leave it, you know mon its illegal to dump paint cans in the garbage mon.” “There are no paint cans in this, well other than garbage, ok well dude there is a dead mouse in it”. “No mon, that is considered composite material that goes in the Wednesday pickup, I can’t take this mon”. “Well what if this conversation didn’t take place, what if I was not standing here, what if….:” He took the bag,, If this were Pakistan I would have hugged him and bribed him both which are considered norm back home. I was ecstatic, “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”, I felt like George Bush.

Weeks and months go by and not an incident. “Looks like we won the war on terror in our house dear” I said one day. “Mom is coming to spend some time at our house” she said. “She won’t be inconvenienced by the little al-Qaeda insurgents, my army training worked” I felt like beating my chest. She just giggled. Two weeks later my mother-in-law arrived with her two Pomeranians, typical green acres wife, very picky and meticulous, where as our house a literal ranch with a big German shepherd and 4 boys looks like disaster area in New Orleans after Katrina. Very next day, as I come home from work, I run into a loya jirga in my living room. “Oh Maula, these mice are so brave that they have come out in the middle of the day running across the living room.” I smiled thought they were talking about my brave apprehension of the al-Qaeda rat. My wife said “They are baaaack, and they want revenge”. “Honey you need to call an exterminator” and take care of this problem once and for all, I can’t be bothered with looking for little critters, this is cutting into my quality time with kids”. My Mother in law chimed in “If you have holes in your house you may want to plug them with steel wool, mice don’t like steel wool, and they get tangled in it so they avoid it, but you don’t have holes in your house? Do you?” “We got holes all over the place, this is an old house we have them all over the place” That was like the last nail in the coffin for my mother-in-law, she rolled her eyes and said “I am leaving”, “But you just got here” I said, “I come from the east, and that’s just not fair” I added. Her response “Well son I am from the west and while I may dabble in vindaloo and curry occasionally, I just don’t understand you Indians and your love of bugs and pests, I can’t be bothered with them”, “but I am from Pakistan” I protested, but to no avail try arguing with a woman that lived through the great depression, she packed her bags and disappeared as if she didn’t exist.

“Honey we need to call the terminator”, I said, “Maula” was the prompt reply, “do you know what rat poison is?” I cut her off. “Darling I was not born yesterday, I know a thing or two about murders, killing and genocide, you are thinking of the 60s with DDT and cancer, now the technology is much advanced, they even use lasers and radio waves to hunt them down, kind of like the FISA act for rodents.” This was now turning into failed negotiations of Kashmir, N. Korea, Israel, Belfast combined. I was of the opinion that we eradicate them by using bombs and terminators and even getting a few mercenaries or cats from ASPCA, she was of the opinion to let them get trapped, after a few deaths they will leave. I tried explaining why we ended up in Afghanistan and Iraq and why we have gitmo and off shored CIA prisons, and still we are losing war on terror, simply because we haven’t used more nuclear laced daisy cutters in FATA area, she was happy with the progress on war on terror as long as it was being conducted with all legalities and fought conventionally, I on the hand a big proponent of total destruction of FATA and complete sanitization of an area where a terrorist is found. This was like trying to convince Ahmadnijad of Iran that holocaust did occur, but she won’t listen to rat poison and complete bombing, she instead cited websites and research on rat poison and how it is dangerous to kids and pets, “what if bomar eats a dead mouse that is already affected by rat poison, what if the kids pick up the poisoned brick?” “Honey we have a crawl space for basement, no one goes there that’s why I call it the FATA area of our house, I say we lob a few bombs underneath and let them all rot in hell, no one invades my sovereignty”.

After two days of intense negotiations more like US-India nuclear talks that failed, our negotiations bore fruit. We decided that we will bomb the place, by scheduling it while we are away on vacation, no dog, no kids, and just total destruction of life underground. I did win the battle, awaiting outcome on the war.