I'm getting used to the idea of needing to unpack in order to pack. It used to be that I would go home for a period of weeks and come back with a suitcase full of clean clothes. I'd live out of the suitcase until I ran out of socks. By then, I had already "unpacked". Things were simpler back then. Now without "home" in the picture, and our trip having allotted only one shot at a coin-operated laundry that I had to share with one of my quartet members (half a load each), I've come back with a suitcase of half-clean clothes.
As in, one half of the suitcase of clothes is clean; the other half, dirty. I don't mean that it's a suitcase full of clothes that I wore for only half a day -- which, as we all know, is the empirical way of measuring the state of your laundry.
Since we all know that dirty can spread and somehow clean doesn't -- with all the inter-suitcase mingling of clean and dirty clothes, maybe the clean clothes are now only half-clean and so I'm actually coming back with a suitcase of clothes only one-quarter-clean. Whatever. The point is I can't figure out which half is clean now.
Consequently, the issue of unpacking. I would rather leave the quarter-clean clothes in the suitcase, saving me the need to both unpack and re-pack them. (I now know why people fold their cleans.) So I've been staring at the suitcase for some time and sniffing at this and that, but everything just smells like luggage.
So far my solution, as you can see, is to write about it. Then, assuming I'm in a practical state, I'd just wash the whole suitcase full of laundry. But writing about it first seems to be the more definitive plan of action.
We've recently come back from Banff, Alberta and come to appreciate two of the directors there so much that we decided to send them fruit baskets. Fruit baskets are great because. Period. That was a complete sentence, just so you know. You cannot question the fruit basket. Have you ever seen anyone who became upset over the receipt of a fruit basket? Case closed. So I called this company who operates nation-wide and got someone on the phone from Ottawa. A Francophone with whom I had to systematically break down every syllable in order to get my point across.
My point to cross was a fruit basket. Before it stepped off the curb, it was hassled by severe linguistic traffic. Ten minutes later, because we simply could not understand each other, there was now going to be cheese accompanying the fruit. I just wanted to get it over with.
"Do you want to include a free greeting letter?" he asked me, which I initially heard as a crowd of mumbles and something about whether three Greeks were better. I found myself dictating an awkward and unnatural missive that I had little faith would remain truthful to its original meaning, especially when I was composing it by the syllable, accenting and elongating all my s's, t's and a myriad of fricatives so that at one point, I forgot how to spell "opportunity". He copied it down haltingly, every now and then asking me to repeat, so that at about the 20-minute mark on my cell phone timer, we were five words in. You'd think he was chiseling it into stone with a thumbtack and tiny hammer.
Finally, I concluded the note with, "With sincerest gratitude."
"With serious attitude..." he declared, confidently. Was he kidding me? I nearly burst out loud laughing. Can you imagine using these guys to propose to someone? Number one on "Top ten ways to not get your point across".
Anyway, I read out my email address three times to this guy and since the promised confirmation email didn't show up, I called back. She had me at "hello". It sounded British and I was relieved to the point of elation, "Hi, so glad to hear your hello. I'm just a little concerned because I haven't received an email and I was speaking with some man who spoke more French than English, if that's polite enough to say, and I'm a little afraid that there was a botch in our exchange."
"..."
"Hello?"
"Hello. Yes, may I help you?" I couldn't figure out if she was Eastern European or of Asian descent.
"Uh... Yes. I hope."
"You say you like box of change?"
"No, I..." For a moment I was debating whether to hang up and try again. I pushed "1 for English", didn't I?
"Hello?"
"Hi, yes, I'm here. Could you read out to me, on the file, what my email address is? Afiara."
"Okay. A like appoh, F like fah (fire), I like ice crem..."
"Oh, me too," I said, jokingly.
"I'm sorry, sir, I could not hear you. Please repeat?"
"Sorry, I was just joking. I have this habit of joking when it's entirely inappropriate and jarring to my initial wish for efficiency." I always get more articulate for some reason when speaking to those whose principal language isn't English. It's that same thing I do when I'm talking to a crowded room of four-year-old kids and suddenly reference Hegel and use phrases like "flew into a Byronic rage".
"... I will repeat again. A like appoh, F like fah, I like ice crem... A like appoh, R like rose, A like appoh..."
She went through the whole thing and when your email address is "afiarastringquartet" you're there for a while. I was brought pleasantly back to when I was eight and home sick, watching those low-budget shows that came on right before Sesame Street.
"Q like quarta, U like umbrella, A like appoh, R like rose, T like tom, E like elfunt... @gmail.com."
"No no! There it is! T! You missed a T like tom!" I shouted happily, as if our friend Tom was always in the habit of missing his T's.
"Where?"
"Right before the 'at'."
"Sir, let me repeat to you again. A like appoh, F like fah, I like ice crem..."
I sat through the whole thing again. I interupted perhaps a little hotly at the place in question. "T!!!!! Right there!"
"The T comes after the E?"
"Yes, it's like 'i before e'... except when the word is 'quartet' and you're missing a T."
"Beg pardon, sir?"
"Nevermind. T after E. Yes."
So I just checked again -- it's been three hours -- and still no email. I guess I should just unpack the suitcase and call again tomorrow. Maybe I'll push "2 for French" and see how we do.
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