JAZAN: What’s in a name? For one set of Saudi parents it means enough to separate 48 hours after their first baby was born because they couldn’t agree on what to name him. The father wanted to name the boy after the baby’s late grandfather while the mother had promised to name her firstborn after her father. The parents wouldn’t budge and the disagreement grew. The families tried in vain to intervene by offering suggestions for alternative names. The dispute got so bad the mother went back to her family with the child while the father sent a divorce letter to the father-in-law.
Dial C for confusion and chaos
MAKKAH: When men in Jabal Al-Noor in Makkah would call home recently, strange men would answer. This, of course, led immediately to the men assuming that strange men were hanging out in their homes, which led to the expected shouting and threat-making. Turns out, however, that the phone company had temporarily mixed up phone lines. When men would call home, the calls were being inadvertently put through to other people’s homes. The phone company apologized for the mix-up and fixed the problem — fortunately before these misunderstandings ended up in fisticuffs.
