RIYADH, 17 October 2006 — One of the drawbacks to the niqab (the face-covering veil) is that it can be easy to mistake one woman for another. So men, let this little story be a lesson. An abaya-wearing woman smacked a man in the face after he mistook her for his sister. The man had nudged the woman from her waist at a supermarket, which made the woman hysterical. After smacking the man, the woman began yelling at him, which raised enough of a ruckus that other women in the store joined in. “Have you no shame! And during Ramadan! What do you take us for? Donkeys?” were among the comments that were easily overheard by a gathering crowd of gawkers. Supermarket employees had to intervene to help evacuate the man. The niqab can lead to many humorous (or maybe not so, depending on your view) situations. Stories of young men dressing in abayas to get past watchers — usually to meet their loved ones — is a common story. In the Saudi film “Keif Al Hal?” (“How Are You?”), released late last year to much fanfare as the first Saudi film, one of the characters, a young man, is admiring an abaya-wearing woman in a mall until — much to his consternation — he realizes it’s his mom.