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Al Wasl Nursery: families walking past the tent through the garden

The Most-Used Doorbell

The car horn is the most-used doorbell in the country.

Words & sketches: Omran Alowais · 22 October 2026

385 words · 2 min read

Al Wasl Nursery Families walking past the tent through the garden. Ardh, urban proposal, 2020.

Majlis Talks05

Sketch of a man on a sofa in a dark room, coffee within reach, the corner shop 100 metres away

There’s a ritual in our neighbourhoods. I call it the Chips Oman run.

Picture it. A grown man is sunk deep into his sofa, in a living room as cool and dark as a cinema. The AC hums. The curtains are drawn against a sun that has been trying to break in since dawn. Somewhere between one episode and the next, a craving arrives: Chips Oman and an ice-cold can of Vimto.

Does he walk? Of course not. He is not an animal. He climbs into a four-tonne SUV and drives to the baqala, our 7-Eleven. And there he stops. Not in a parking space, and not quite on the road either. He leaves it across the mouth of the car park, two wheels on the kerb, in a style best described as borderline offensive. Everyone else must now pretend this dinosaur of a car isn’t there and edge around it. Nobody complains. It’s simply part of the weather.

Sketch of an SUV outside a corner shop, horn sounding, a boy running out with the order

As if he’s announcing a royal wedding.

Then he leans on the horn.

A boy sprints out, takes the order and returns with the crisps, the Vimto and a 1 dirham chai karak. Our hero reverses out, and somewhere on Google Maps, every street around the baqala quietly turns red.

Why not park and walk in? Because he’s in his وزار وفانيلة, wezar w fanila, and some things are not for public viewing. And because out there, the sun is waiting. It doesn’t just warm you. It plants a hot, wet kiss on the back of your neck and leaves you blushing all the way home.

Sketch of a car at an Emarat petrol station, door to door

So here’s what I’ve noticed. If the parking is 6.9 metres from the door, he’ll come back later. If it’s 100 metres, he won’t come back at all. Which makes the petrol station the finest un-urban solution ever built for this kind of customer. Park at the door. In. Out. I used to wonder when the day would come that the baqala, or the dukkan, would simply come to your house. (Deliveroo and Talabat weren’t on anyone’s radar when I wrote this. Wink.)

That’s it. That’s the observation. The car horn is the most-used doorbell in the country, and we keep designing shops as if nobody owns a car, or a wezar.

Have a nice weekend. Go and get your Chips Oman. Walk, if you can.

Practically speaking,
Omran