The sun is out in Edison, New Jersey. Kids are on their way to school across the town, yawning and dreading their tests (or maybe that’s just me). Cars have backed up Grove Avenue almost until Oak Tree Road, and buses are running late. By 7:30, my street is full of cars with frantic parents dropping their kids off to walk the rest of the way to school. But none of us notice those who sit in the middle of the trees, laughing at the sight of us scrambling to school. None of us see the deer.

That’s right. The deer. Has anyone noticed how there are so many deer in our town? It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even notice that they are there—unless there’s a fawn eating our grass and in that case, I take pictures! Otherwise, the deer go about their business, and we go about ours. They are a normalized part of our life.

Well, let’s rewind to last summer. My cousins from Qatar came to live with us for a month. And I gotta say, it was surprising to go biking and watch them squeal and scream when they saw a deer for the first time on our sidewalk. It was hard to believe that my restless cousins, who have a spice tolerance double than anything I will ever have, were afraid of the super-cute and innocent baby deer outside of our house.

Full disclosure: I teased them to no end. They tried to act tough and say that they weren’t afraid (yeah, right!), but it got me thinking about why they had reacted this way. Deer are normal to us. But in Qatar? The animals they live with are stray cats (which are readily available in every street) and occasionally camels. They haven’t seen a deer. EVER. Not even in a zoo.

I wondered what it would be like to walk in the street side by side with twenty cats. A pretty scary feat, despite the fact that I love cats. So could I really blame them for getting freaked out when they saw a deer?

No. I suppose I could not. The next time we saw a deer when we were biking in the street, I took my cousins on a different route instead of forcing them to face their fear. They could face it in their own time, on their own terms. I couldn’t blame them for being unable to adjust when I probably would act the same if I saw an animal I don’t usually see in their country.

So no matter how tempting it may be, don’t tease your friends or family when they take time to adjust to your home. Because you may never know when you will get pulled out of your comfort zone…