Tired with a reason

“Why are you sleeping? Its Eid!”-- the voice inevitably disturbs your slumber every Eid day. The voice is, usually at least, of female origins. It seems women cannot for the life of them comprehend why men like to sleep on Eid day, right after they come back home from their prayers and have a hearty breakfast. Well, not that the men owe you an explanation, apart from the fact that they are lazy, we might still try to make sense of their behavior.
Firstly, buying the cow, whose slaughter we just over-saw by the way, is not an easy process. It's not grocery shopping, where you feel up the ripest one, strike a mean deal and carry your spoils back home. No. Buying a cow is difficult. It's not like buying meat either. A better analogy is buying a nail-polish without trying on the shade. You never know what to expect behind the hide, so you must carefully evaluate your options.

And the options are many but the traders are skilled liars. They will bluff and tell you everything you want to hear and if past discretions are anything to go by, men are fickle when flattered. They might and probably will go over-budget. Once they do, the men will then, most likely, walk the cow back home all the way from the cattle market. That's a tiring journey. Even if they don't, the haggling process in itself is draining. Even before the cow is sacrificed, we are already tired.

While Eid starts on Eid day for the general population, for the men it starts when the cows, goats and camels crowd the streets. The minute that happens, the men know they have to get to work. While women don't know this, the men spend weeks discussing cows and goats. An Afghan would feel right at home during this time, at any tea shop wherever. Men discuss prices, size, what to look for, where to go, who to contact, etc. All this talk is exhausting but not more so than the hunt for the slaughterer.

Though real men know that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword, there is still a need for the butcher. And getting a good butcher is hard but a bad butcher usually means taunts from your wife for every remaining Qurbani Eid for the rest of your life. The pressure is intense. Once the cow and the butcher are done, it comes to overseeing the work. We also must wake up real early, bathe the cow and ourselves and spend quite a bit of time praying and things. There are also Eid day discussions at the mosque, a rather tiresome activity.
And then the men have to do the hardest part; go around and meet relatives and everyone really hates relatives, especially those who come around every Eid and only during then, flashing their meat in your face. How's that fun? And so, with all things to do, consider and discuss the whole ordeal is a difficult one. Why are we sleepy? Because we damn well haven't slept in days, that's why and with good reason too. Leave us be, why don't you?