Even though I am an apostate, in secret, I still have to pretend I am a Moslem by going to the mosque, praying and reading the Koran. I am still living with my intensely Moslem family and they, of course, don’t know I have converted out of Islam. So I have to keep up the appearance of being devoutly Moslem myself, no matter how much I hate it.

So, during the last Ramadan, I was reading the Koran, in the mosque, pretending as usual--since it was the Ramadan so there was no escaping for me anyway. Now, I love to chew Extra—it’s my favorite gum. And I always chew it during the day, no matter where I am, even in the mosque. I wasn’t even aware of my gum-chewing, but someone else close by apparently was. An Arab approached me, and told me, "reading the Koran while chewing gum is sinful, you might not be able to pronounce the words in the Koran perfectly." I replied, "I am not reading it out loud anyway, so it doesn’t matter." Not backing down one bit, the arrogant Arab said, "it does." And the other Moslems around me, including my father, quickly ganged up on me and supported my opponent; they even wanted me to throw away my precious gum …

At that point, I promptly stopped 'reading' the Koran and walked out of the mosque.