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15/05/2006: "Gun"
On Sunday, I was wearing a t-shirt picturing an AK47 and some profanities about the weapon's properties. I entered a small shop to buy a drink and as I was handing the money to the clerk, he asked me if I liked guns. I asked him if he'd shot with one. He said no, but he'd shot with Kalashnikovs in Pakistan. (I wanting him to go on, which is way I didn't tell him they were actually the same weapons). He'd also shot with 222s - and started drawing with his finger on my t-shirt how the 222 looked like (similar, just without the stock). I told him I'd been to Peshawar. He laughed and told me something like: "Oh, but in the Peshawar, everybody has a gun. You go in the shop and instead of putting groceries into your basket, you put handful of bullets!" He went on to say that "the Peshawar" is quite unique with its own laws, but you couldn't just want around with a gun elsewhere in Pakistan. I told him I even had to pay to have an armed guard escort me to the nearby Agency - and he'd been carying an AK47 (see my post Road to Kabul).
I also told him about my little incident in Islamabad when a police office confiscated my bottle of whisky he found while searching my bag before boarding the bus to "the Peshawar". The clerk was surprised that the bottle hadn't been confiscated earlier, like at the airport. But he told me I should have given a dollar to the policeman instead, in order to keep the bottle and claim I was carrying it for medical purposes (which was true - whisky is great to get over an upset stomach!). Didn't think about that, as I was worried I'd be put through more trouble for trying to violate a religious rule. The clerk didn't seem particularly concerned about this, clearly suggesting the policeman saw an opportunity to treat a superior or colleague.
It's a nice t-shirt (except for the weapon and profanities).
