Girls night out

I'd forgotten just how much fun girls-night-out can be. Yesterday night was fun

A year ago, I think, when I was engaged and hence free of my parents' judicious inquiries about every minute spent outside the house after ten pm, Aisha, Nida, Rahma and I took upon a fateful, but the most crazily memorable night out together.

We had dinner, watched a soppy romantic comedy in what is Karachi only theatre friendly to four unmarried girls cruising the city on their own after hours, and around eleven pm headed out to get into Aisha's cultus and hurry home...

The cultus had a flat.

Now, most women in the world don't know how to change a tire. It's OKAY -it's fact of life. There almost always is an eager male passerby to help, teenagers driving by who would forget about where they were heading, park their car and come running to help you. I think it really brings out the best in men and it's just lovely. Unless, of course, you happen to be stranded in the middle of nowhere near the beach, without a jack that works on your particular brand of vehicle.

Of course the theatre guards came to help, random passerby came running too. But to no avail: the jack, and not just any Jack but the cultus jack, it seemed was going to be the only saviour for the haplesss four women.

Anyway, we made our calls for help. Parents weren't an option, didn't want to hear the told-you-nice-girls-don't-go-out-to-the-other-end-of-the-city-ontheirownatnight(yes, we were all in our twenties and had jobs. It's Pakistan.) Unfortunately though, this particular situation called for a Knight, and among the four of us, we have about two and a half male friends who could actually be relied upon to help. One of them doesn't even qualify as male half of the time. But I digress. Our most reliable(?) friend came promptly. However, I still don't know why he really did since he didn't have a jack in his own car (which also wasn't a cultus). He started to make his own calls.

Observation here: You have to love Pakistani men for their healthy, varied and very, very loyal circle of friends...especially so when they are being called to help a bunch of stranded girls.

One of his friends arrived. No cultus jack. Two hours later, it was nearly one that we finally left after one of our friends' friend's friend had dropped by, WITH a CULTUS JACK and saved us. We did our really-genuine-this-time giddy thankful girl routine, he had his reward. By then Nida's mom had threatened to disown her, I fail to remember what my parents' reaction was (thank God for engagements), the other mothers had once again reinstated their beliefs that their daughters were out of control.

The moral of the story is this: girls nights out are the best. Flat tires, cultus jacks and all.