BUYER BEWARE: An Oud Story from one of my shebab

One of the boys, we'll call him AC, does not love Amouage (the perfumery) as much as OPNO.

His tale of buyer beware.

AC: "I personally think it has nothing to do with the Amouage company itself, my story, and EVERYTHING to do with the Omani girl salesperson who 'helped' me. But...

I was buying Oud. The wood we burn as insence. In Amouage, it is supposed to be of a very high grade and so it is expensive, and a better grade than the kind one can pick up for less in other locations. I had bought some Oud from this woman, and when I used it, I noticed it was the kind of a very low quality. Not the kind Amouage would stock at all. But this is hard to prove. I figured out she was switching it for the higher quality, and selling the low grade.

So I went back to the store, and asked her to make me a very large order of the same, and to grind it very small so that it would take alot of time to burn. Which is alot of work. When she came back with it and I was supposed to pay for it, I offered her, like one would at the Souq [not a place like Amouage] the price for very low grade bukhoor [incense]. She got my point. That I knew she had cheated me and looked very afraid. I never reported her, but of course I didn't buy the oud she worked so hard on grinding."

-AC