Tight Security

Part of living in the Middle East involves getting used to security check points everywhere.
The highway. The grocery store. The hotels. The beach club. The airport. The school.
Today, I was a little surprised by some heightened security.
I was driving toward the airport and came up to one of the normal check points. The road was barricaded and traffic was forced to file through to the other side (wrong way) of the road. I wondered what was going on. Should I be concerned? Are they looking for someone, something? Did someone try to zoom through the check point? My mind had fun.
I slowly wound around all the barricades. As I rounded the corner the heightened security measures became very obvious to me.
The two guards were involved in an intense backgammon game. They had set their board up on the sidewalk on one side of the check point hut, then forced all the cars through to that one side so they didn't have to go back and forth and disrupt their game. Smart guys.