I never understood Bahrain’s unhealthy love affair with phone and license plate numbers. Sure “good” numbers are convenient and easy to remember, but why are they considered such an important status symbol that some people are willing to pay up to BD5,000 for them, according to published newspaper reports. Several people have offered to buy my phone number (which I didn’t pay anything extra for) because it starts with a 39444. I don’t know why because I never felt that I ever got preferential treatment because of it. I still get a bill at the end of the month…

It is also interesting what is considered a good number nowadays. For example, some people will pay good money for numbers that form a certain shape on the telephone dial pad (It looks like a ‘V’! How exciting!). Others with a lot of time on their hands sit at home and make up ways to make their numbers sound interesting to justify their existence in front of their similarly insecure friends.
“Look, if you add the first three digits, it equals the fourth! I think I just wet myself!”

When Batelco introduced pre-paid mobile services to Bahrain several years ago, Bahrainis created a new form of prejudice never before known to man. People with post-paid accounts actually began to look down on people with pre-paid ones. It’s true! I’ve seen it happen more than once! By that measure people who don’t carry mobiles at all must be the scum of the earth.

Thousands of dinars have also been spent on car license plate numbers, again purely for the sake of status. There is only one small problem with this, however. The number plates these misguided social climbers are buying don’t actually belong to the people who are selling them! The numbers are actually the property of the government and could vanish the moment it decides that a new, more efficient, license plate system is needed. They could decide to introduce letters alongside numbers (like Saudi Arabia did, for example). After all, how easy is it to note down and remember a six-digit on a car that’s just smashed into you and is now speeding away? I mean for normal people, not obsessive compulsive number collectors. Then I bet we’d have bozos fighting over combinations such as XXX-69 or FU-2. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so sad…

tariqk1976@hotmail.com 

tkhonji@yahoo.com

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