I work for a junkyard / storage lot / towing company with a bunch of employees matching the rough nature and environment of the work. One of us is a six foot five tall, 280 pound, longhaired Harley Davidson riding beast of a man with a pair of handle bar mustaches who, in tribute to Johnny Cash's "Big John," we call Big Bad John. Fittingly, he is almost always silent, with a face devoid of any emotions even remotely resembling compassion. In short, he makes our own Shaaboun Bee-mokh look like Mother Teresa.

Sometime ago, I decided to confront this man regarding some work related issue. He was having his lunch with his huge Doberman dog alertly and menacingly sitting next to him. After letting me finish what I had to say, without looking at me, he reached out and with his index finger scooped up all of the goo and dried mucus-like material from around the dog's eyes, smeared it on his sandwich, and continued eating. Once finished, he downed the remainder of his soda, let out a burp, stood up, and left without saying a word. The message was loud and clear. Do not mess with someone who is able to eat a dog's eye mucus. Speechless, I went about my business, making sure that from then on, I did not cross paths with Big Bad John.

About a month ago, I went to work taking with me two left over kabobs (without rice or bread.) At lunchtime, I put them in the microwave owen of our lunch room to warm them up. When the heating time was up, I took them out and noticed that because of microwaving, they had become a little darker. Naturally I did not mind and sat down at a table and started taking bites out of my kabobs.

At this time, I noticed from the corner of my eyes that Big Bad John was sitting at a corner table and was intensely watching me eating my kabobs. I pretended that I did not see him and finished my kabobs, downed the rest of my soda, let out a burp, stood up, and while cleaning my table, glanced at Big Bad John. The look of bewilderment on his face was unmistakable.

A few days passed and I forgot about this lunchroom encounter. However, I slowly started to sense a change of attitude on his behalf every time we were in close proximity. I noticed that he had become respectful and any time our eyes met, he would say "Howdy," something he would never say to anybody else. I can even go so far as to say that I also detected a measure of fear and apprehension in him. I was baffled. What brought about this drastic change of attitude? What was going on inside this man's mind?

I stayed thoroughly baffled until one day I overheard two employees talking about Big Bad John having warned them to stay away from that Eyranian guy if they knew what was good for them. He had told them that he saw me in lunchroom wolfing dawn several pieces of heated doggy do as if it were New Orleans barbeque. Of course he had used his own bone-jarring vocabulary to refer to dog feces.

It turned out that Big Bad John had concluded that on that day in lunch room I was champing doggy do for lunch in order to challenge his dog eye mucus eating act and top it with something entirely unattainable even by him. He had then decided that such a guy (me) cannot be messed with or bothered, hence his newfound respect for me and advice for other employees to be afraid, very afraid of me.

Ever since that episode, I have been thinking maybe our national obsession with kabob has not been in vain after all. If I was able to strike terror in the heart of a ghoul like Big Bad John by simply eating kabob in front of him, imagine what a large demonstration of kabob eating Iranians marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House would do to the nerves of the neocons that are contemplating an attack on Iran.

Think about it. Maybe the sight of kabob in the hands of thousands of Iranians can be a more powerful deterrent than the atomic bomb sought after by the Islamic Republic. And best of all, kabob is the only axis around which all Iranians can be united. Yes, our revered kabob might be our only hope and salvation. Comment