6 Concepts Egyptians Don't Get

As a nation, Egyptians have had a certain amount of difficulty grasping certain concepts. Not concepts that are particularly difficult to wrap your head around, but more basic concepts that basically every country on earth seems to be getting along fine with.

1. The concept of a lane.

What is it with this nationwide misunderstanding of the concept of a damn lane? It's not that hard to drive in a straight line and in case you have difficulty adhering to this, there are BIG WHITE LINES drawn on the road to aid you in this difficult quest. But no. Egyptians mabye3tarefoosh with such a ridiculous concept. What are these strange markings on the ground? Are they leading us to treasure? Nobody expects you to follow them; you simply squeeze your car wherever you see fit, goddammit! Imagine the amount of money the government could have saved just not painting these entirely pointless lines on the roads. Everyone could be rolling around in mountains of gold right now.

2. The concept of a queue.

In most countries, people stand behind one another in this nifty little thing called a queue. But in Egypt, we prefer to charge at our desired place like a stampede of cattle who just got injected with thirteen tones of coke, practically humping each other to try and get ahead. Why wait in line when you can jump in? It is your god-given right to claim your spot wherever the fuck you please. It's not wrong to cut ahead of someone; it's simply survival of the fittest. It's a competition and if you don't make it there first, you've lost, are clearly deficient as a human being, and enta mesh ragel.

 3. The concept of the veil.

The entire point of wearing a veil is to hide your body. You're supposed to cover all your allegedly scandalous and haram curves and not draw attention to your blasphemous female figure. Somehow this message got lost in Quranic translation. Instead, veiled Egyptian women opt for a lovely variety of skintight lycra Carina suits, in various layers (think red skintight long-sleeved Carina top under pink skintight Carina halter top) that cling to every bulging roll caused by our samna-fuelled Egyptian cooking. FYI, when your clothes fit you like a balloon fits trapped air and you look like you've just been gangbanged by Crayola, you're not doing the whole veil thing right. Estaghferallah.

4. The concept of giving directions.

Clearly, Egyptians never got the memo on how to give directions; no one told them you only give directions that you know. Instead we think it's was an 'ask the audience' type of situation and that we should just answer as best we can. And you are considered are a shitty excuse for a human being if you admit to not knowing where somewhere is; 3eib enn enta mata3rafsh. Next time you're bored in the car, go around asking where Midan Mickey Mouse is. We assure you, our fair Egyptian population will not leave you hanging – they will point you in the direction of this imaginary midan. "3alatool, 3alatool weh ba3den khosh shemal, weh ba3den es2al henak ba2a."  

5. The concept of political correctness.

We may be brown but we still manage to be more racist than the most ardent KKK member and, honest people that we are, we don't feel the need to hide it. Like, ever. We have no qualms with using the word nigger, whether we're in Egypt or not, "Yala el wad da niggar uslun!" Asians are straight up "nas sofr" and don't even get us started on the Jews.

6. The concept of democracy.