TABUK, 16 November 2006 — In a country where the public identity of women is more or less hidden away, men figured out long ago that a good way to go under cover is to go, well, under cover. Stories of men dressing in black robes and the niqab (the covering of the face) for one shady reason or another are fairly common. The daily Okaz reported another such incident yesterday in Tabuk when a cell phone thief decided to cover up and pretend to be a woman. His plan was to walk and talk like a woman to take advantage of the tendency of shopkeepers to trust women more than men with their merchandise. He was going to ask the seller to allow him to take the phone out of the store to show his husband parked outside the store. The only problem with the plan was that in a moment of absent-mindedness, the thief asked the seller if he could take the phone out of the store to show his wife. The storeowner, already suspicious of this broad-shouldered “lady” refused and kicked the shyster out of his store.
