Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 22337 – 804:
Here’s the haps:
Art Vegan looked around and smiled. He was happy to leave this place but knew he would miss it. He had sold his portion of the business to his partner, Joe Burger, and started his own private investigating service. He had just solved a big case involving corrupt officials in a small, quaint little country on the other side of the world. He was just wrapping it up when he realized that he had forgotten to complete the paperwork necessary to get out of this country and back home. He cursed himself. No job is finished until the paperwork is done and he had forgotten the most important paperwork of all, the baksheesh. Fortunately for him, he made a regular habit of carrying large sums of cash with him everywhere he went. He went to see the bureaucrat in charge.
“I am very sorry, sir, but your paperwork is not complete.”
“I’m really sorry about that. I need to get home on this next flight,” said Art, pulling a wad of bills out of his pocket. It was more money than this petty bureaucrat made in two years.
“Sir! Are you trying to bribe a public official?”
“How dare you insinuate such a thing! But, well, I can see how overworked and underpaid you are and was hoping that if you received a gift, a tip, a baksheesh, it might help you when you re-read that paperwork and saw that your initial determination was incorrect. It’s an oversight anyone could make. Do you have an envelope?” The man watched as Art stuffed the money in it and dropped the envelope in the trash can.
The man looked over Art’s papers once more. “Perhaps you were correct. My eyes are tired and I think everything is in order if you need to disembark on that next flight.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Art, picking up his travel backpack, “I’m heading back to scenic Colorado.”
A little while ago my younger sister posted on our tribe’s group text that she had received a “Word of the Day” email and it had the word “baksheesh” in it. It was an unfamiliar term to her and the rest of us as well. When you go look it up it just gets more confusing. It appears to me that the usage depends largely on where you are. In some places it is simply a tip or gratuity, in other places, it is a gift given in kindness, like passing a dollar out the car window to a beggar. I liked the bribery aspect because it appears that the usage is like a gift/bribe. Like my dad would give my brother five dollars to be good while I was good for nothing.
Anyway, at the same time as I was looking that up I noticed that my prompts in the reader were Travel Backpacks, Scenic, and Colorado and when I refreshed it turned up Vegan and Travel Backpacks again. I thought it was a hint to bring back Art Vegan. You can read his first adventure in my story Art Vegan – Health Inspector. This isn’t a story, really, more of an interlude to remember where Art has been. He’ll be back, though.
Yesterday I saw a guy spill all his Scrabble letters on the road so I asked him, “What’s the word on the street?”
Comments
23 responses to “Blogging A – Z Challenge 2021: B Is For Baksheesh”
😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🙃, 😁😁👏👏👏👏👏. I love it!!! Bravo, you used it!!! Thank you!!!!
Yes ma’am! You are welcome.
Enjoying your ‘alphabet soup’ blogging. The Animated gifs of the letters – not so much… rattles me a bit for some reason.
I’m with you. Animated gifs have their place: and usually their place is somewhere else (where I’m not trying to read what someone is trying to say…).
I’m sorry. That’s two…I really liked them.
Sorry, Herb. I’m an old school Internet user; old enough to remember when the ‘blink’ tag was implemented (and it was actually only implemented as a joke). It’s well-known that the eye is drawn to something that moves; it’s hard-wired into us all, because that moving thing could be a tiger. On the Internet, there are no tigers (and, sadly, that may all too soon also be true out there in the wild). But our eyes are still drawn to moving things. And when you’re trying to read text, it’s distracting.
Well, I guess I’ll think it over. Cool versus practical. Hmm…
I think your definition of ‘cool’ differs from mine 😉
lol. Apparently. At least in this aspect.
I’m sorry. They were so much fun to find and use.
No need to be sorry! I think it is just the way my brain views the movement and colours and I doubt it affects others that way!
Your tribe’s group text–we do that too. It’s a great way to stay connected with family, innit?
Yes ma’am.
Your post is timely. It touches on the idea that words have different meanings to different people, especially in different cultures.I was reading a post earlier on today on Goldie’s website that raised questions about the same thing. Interesting topic! To me, ‘baksheesh’ is definitely a negative term, one that’s associated with bribery, and corruption.
Funny, but a burger and fries was a good enough baksheesh for me.
Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Your puns are terrible. You’re welcome
Thank you
Great post But I am confused about the Art Vegan. Does this mean he can’t eat pictures of cows?? If I send a picture of an apple would that be enough of a Baksheesh? I’m So confused
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Spread Laughter Today
You know, some tried to feed him a Charlie Russell oil painting one time and it didn’t go very well.
of course all that sand makes them so dry
If you gifted someone a skewer of meat at the rear of a bus would that be a backsheesh kebab? And would offering suggestions to the bus operator while stuffing a bill into his pocket make one a baksheesh driver? Or is that a bribe to a golfer? I’m confused.
My grandfather maintained that it you used a word in regular conversation for a week it would become part of your vocabulary. I need to get to work with baksheesh because it’s a cool word.
That’s really a good idea. I’m going to have to try to do that. A Baksheeskkbab? Great stuff! 😂😂