The day I watched my friend get a nose job

Have you ever witnessed plastic surgery? It’s not for the squeamish and involves watching little bits of cartilage being removed to make way for a new nose. Did someone say Frankenstein’s monster?

There’s a particular phraseology I’ve heard only a million-and-one times since moving to this city.

Lamborghini police cars: “Only in Dubai”. Gold by way of ATM machines: “Only in Dubai”. Super high-rise tennis courts: “Only in…,” you get what I’m saying.

I’m guilty of overusing this phrase myself, but now I think I can top all the above and win the rights — once and for all — to those three, commonplace words.

Picture the scene. I’m sat in the office of a converted villa in Jumeirah. To my left is a pair of silicon implants — the kind used in breast augmentations — and to my right is my friend. We’ll call her Linda, because she’d throttle me if I revealed her real identity.

It was a voucher purchased online that brought us to this plastic surgeon’s office — yep, a voucher. What that voucher entitled Linda to was a nose job; or a discounted “reduction rhinoplasty” as it so eloquently said. I kid you not!

The thing with Linda is, she’d always had a bit of a hook-nose. Whenever someone whipped a phone camera out, her head would pull sharply into place, staring straight down the camera lens making sure no one snapped a shot of that awful hook-nose, side on.

Thing is though, her nose was just fine. Yea, it was a little prominent, but it suited her. She was beautiful, hot, a “right old sort” as the guys back in the UK would say. But no matter how much you’d tell her, she wasn’t having any of it.

She moved to Dubai about a year after me and while browsing the internet one day, she somehow ended up with a golden ticket to the ‘perfect’ nose. Charlie and The Chocolate Factory: plastic fantastic edition.

Linda paid Dh3,000 for that voucher and instantly, I was sceptical. I mean, really. Am I friends with someone who buys discount nose jobs off some voucher website?

I thought she was ludicrous and I told her so. But like my pleas years earlier in reassuring her that her honker was just fine, they fell on deaf ears. She made an appointment; she was going ahead.

Like a good friend, I went along with her on that particular day. She needed someone to drive her home following the ‘procedure,’ and of course I agreed — rather hesitantly — to go along.

Now here’s where the mother of all “only in Dubai” moments comes along. As we sat in this guy’s office, I scowled at him and lobbed him with uncomfortable question after uncomfortable question.

“Why are you selling your services on a discount voucher website?” being the first, and most obvious. Apparently the “competition in Dubai” warranted his actions. That was his response.

Unimpressed, I let him know straightaway that I was a journalist. Like a scene from Taken, I indirectly told him that if he messed with my friend, I would find him, and I would kill him (not literally, of course), but I would definitely report him. (Okay, not quite Neeson style, but I think my threats worked).

As I sat looking down at those silicon implants brazenly staring up at me, Linda was led to some table-cum-bed thing not two metres from the desk.

That was shock moment number two. As if accompanying my friend to some converted villa for a suspicious nose job wasn’t weird enough, the fact this guy was about to do the whole thing in his office was another jaw-dropper for me. But I couldn’t say anything; I didn’t want to panic her.

After undergoing a local anaesthetic to numb the area, I stood on Linda’s right, holding her hand, and he — the man I secretly referred to as Victor Frankenstein — stood on the left. As he made an incision under her nose, he started filing away, as casual as anything.

Here I was, witnessing real life plastic surgery like it was some everyday thing. But when he started to remove bits of cartilage, I could see the new nose taking shape. For a minute he impressed me, but I quickly remembered to hold the façade of ‘concerned friend, swashbuckling journalist, and Neeson stunt double’. I had to keep him on his toes for the sake of Linda and her new nose.

The whole thing lasted about two hours, with mirrors going back and forth to check she was pleased with the progress. And you’ll be glad to hear Linda and her nose are doing just fine. It’s still intact, which was far more than I was expecting.

Despite how odd this whole encounter sounds, we had done our homework and it was all legit. Shocking, but legit, and I can only imagine how many other wide-eyed expats have sat in that very chair, glaring down at those very implants. Her antics brought a whole new meaning to the words ‘bargain hunter’. But suffice to say, it’s a story that will stick with me for some time.

When I do finally depart the desert, I’ll be leaving with a hearty CV, but I think it will be my trip to the surgeon’s office by way of discount voucher that will dominate my tales from the Middle East.

Linda paid Dh3,000 for that ‘reduction rhinoplasty’ voucher and instantly, I was sceptical. Am I friends with someone who buys discount nose jobs off some voucher website?