Big Brother's Watching

Or not. You can decide for yourself.

Several days ago my mother looked out our window to find the trashman looking through our garbage. He reportedly had taken a booklet from our trashcan and was leafing through the pages, and then failing to find anything of interest, tossed it back into the truck and drove on.

oookay.

So maybe he does some light reading to keep himself entertained. It's not the most pleasant job in the world, you know.

Two days ago Ami (my mom) picked me up from class. We pulled into our driveway while I was finishing up some story about that day's events, when she stopped the car and turned to me somberly and said, "Neda, the FBI took our trash can."

Huh?

"Abu (my dad) called the company and asked about the missing trashcan today and they said they don't know anything about it. Do you know what that means? That means the FBI is involved."

I gave her one of my usual, "Please, not again" looks and said, "Come on Ami, if the NSA has allowed these people to wiretap our suspicious words, I would be in jail right now with the number of times I've explained to my friends over the phone what 'Jihad', 'Al-Queda', and 'Osama bin Laden' were all about."

Of course, mom was still doubtful and kept to her suspicions.

Then, the similar event of one of my cousin whose trashcan was switched around with her neihbor's on two different occasions sealed the deal on my parent's idea that we are a target of an FBI investigation. This is not the only time my parents have claimed suspicious activity around our home, but really, it can't be certain.

(By the way, just to make it clear, we have nothing to hide. Not even our garbage. If anybody would like to search for themselves, be my guest.)