3 Nov. How do you buy a camel?

I wonder how you buy a camel in the Arabic countries?

I've always wondered about that. Is it like buying a car in the States?

I can picture it now. There I am in Arabia somewhere and I need a camel and know I can't afford a new one. I look in the papers and see an ad for Abe Schwartzman's Used camel lot. No, that ain't right. It's really Honest Muhammud's Used Camel Sales.

So you pull up to his lot and presto! There it is. A whole line of used camels to choose from, and flimsy banners hanging from between a pair of palm trees. A few balloons tied around some of the camels necks and the usual assortment of signs. One owner...Runs new...Low miles and the usual colorful array of fringed doodads you would expect to find on a used camel lot.

Out of the tent comes Honest Muhammud, clad in the usual flowing Arabic garments with a couple of gold chains exposed, a gold tooth and a diamel pinkie ring. "Hello, I Honest Muhammud. Can I help you? You need camel?"

He shakes your hand and you instinctively check your hand to see if your ring is missing. It isn't.

"Very good camel here," Says Muhammud, pointing at the biggest one on the lot. "Only ridden by little old lady that went to Mosque...This one here good water milage. It get forty miles to gallon of water and can pass three oasises without fill-up."

"Check hoof out one dis one," says Muhammud, lifting the animal's foot and showing the bottom of the camel's foot. "Lotsa of tread left. Many miles left on this one. Runs new."

I suppose it really isn't like that at all, but for the life of me I can't figure out how you would buy a camel in the Arab countries. But then again people are pretty much the same all over so I suppose there must be some kind of local equivalent of buying a car in the States in the Arabic countries that is pretty close to what we do here.
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