I don't know many guys who admit they aren't good at driving. Ever since Henry Ford, the steering wheel's been kind of a thing young men aspire to and claim they own before even their acne clears. But after a common adolescence where I exercised the chest-beating philosophy that I was somehow great at everything, I find myself now one of very few men who possesses an honest assessment of my driving skills: I don't have any. I used to brag about how I could back into parking spaces really well. But the last time I tried parallel parking it took me five tries until the car in front of me left.
Aside from my incapacity for dimension and negotiating angles, I think the problem is that, other than when I play Mario Kart, I don't trust myself at high speeds. I have a reaction time that is the jealousy of plant life. I'm the guy in his twenties with racing shades driving five under the limit like your grandmother. Always. It doesn't really matter if I'm late, much to the quiet frustration of anyone I happen to be driving. Like my mom. Or pastors. And septuagenarians. Infants. And my friend's 8-year-old cousin. At some point in my life, these people have shown in unsubtle ways how I need to lay it onto the gas pedal.
Nervous we weren't ever going to get there, one guy told me how driving the speed limit itself was not riding the fine line of sin, which he knew he had warned about in last week's sermon.
Anyway, I had a point.
Oh, yes. So my girlfriend, Min, came to visit me in San Francisco and we rented a car for a day. I don't know if Min just thought I was being humble when I told her I really can't drive. I just think there comes a time in your life when you have to recognize your limitations: Like, for instance, after calculating your credits meticulously so that you have enough to graduate and somehow it still takes you seven years to finish college, you have to admit that maybe you're not that good at math. (Or maybe just at school.) (I'm not saying this happened to me.) (That was just an example.) But, anyway, Min probably thinks I'm being ultra-modest because she and I first met when I was fifteen. I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen and when I got my driver's license later on, I had driven her to a train station once. This was a tactical maneuver devoid of any chivalry and ram-packed full of a barnyard attempt to impress. Also, that was when my email had something to do with how I was one of the wonders of the modern world -- wait, it still is -- and I probably regaled with her with how awesome I was at everything; in particular, driving. So here we are, over a decade later, rekindling a crush that had evinced itself only in the form of letter-writing in our self-conscious teens, and I'm telling her the exact opposite: I actually am bad at everything.
So, from wonder to blunder, while driving back to San Francisco on the highway, I noticed a police car trailing behind me with its red siren lights blinking. I wasn't sure if the lights meant, "Hello, I'm going to pass you but I just wanted to show you in the brightest way I know how", so I kind of pushed my foot on the gas a little to give him space... or something. (I've noticed my reasoning for anything always makes less sense in retrospect.) He got the point pretty quick (that I'm stupid and I don't know that blinking lights on a cop car is a universal signal to pull over) and he started blaring his sirens and shouting on a megaphone. "Pull over!" Which was immediately followed by, "No... NOT at the exit shoulder... Do not block the highway exit. Pull over after the... No. Keep driving... You need to keep driving. Okay... Good... After this underpass, okay... PULL OVER NOW." I'm not kidding.
My girlfriend, who has never been pulled over in her life, calmly pulls out the insurance papers and has my driver's license ready. Probably because, during this time, I'm still trying to figure out how to turn off the radio and also because I just had to have a policeman direct me, step-by-step and via megaphone, the basics of pulling over. The cop walks up and asks me if I know why I've been pulled over. I tell him I don't know and he asks me if I've had anything to drink. I tell him I had a glass of wine with an early dinner three hours ago (which was the truth). I'm sure he's heard that one before so he performs an elaborate alcohol test which consists of him telling me to follow the tip of his finger as he moves it front of my face. He tells me not to move my head but only my eyes. I think he was actually trying to see if I was really stupid. So he could write me a ticket that said, "Driving under the heavy influence of... stupid." Anyway, I passed that test pretty well, I thought. Even when he was being all tricky. And moving his finger way, way over to the left.
He pulled me over because I was weaving a little, he says, albeit it was inside my lane. Other than that, I can go, he says. Essentially, I was having trouble driving straight. None of us moved after he said that, so I was like, "Should my girlfriend just drive because I suck?"
The man, realizing that this ordeal had done nothing for my masculinity, chuckled and said, "No no, you're fine. I mean, unless you're tired or something."
I wasn't tired but I started unbuckling my seat belt anyway because this was seriously the first time I had been pulled over on the account of doing a plain bad job. It was at this point that I realized I don't think they teach you how to drive straight at driving school. I think they taught me... how to turn or something. Driving straight isn't supposed to be the hard part. So maybe the system's not skewed by masculinity and maybe it's not a big deal I'm one of the only few guys who say they suck at driving. Statistically speaking, I just might be one of the few who actually do.
Amos Lee, the singer, was on the Aspen-Denver leg of my flight this morning and I acted like a star-struck fourteen-year-old girl. Minus the screaming, giggling, and underwear-throwing. He saw my obvious gawk and threw up an introverted "What's up?"
Amos Lee isn't one of those artists I know and pretend to like when I bump into them. I actually think he's a complete artist and a real musician. I've seen him on late night shows, I have one of his albums, and can sing along with most of his songs. Plus he's underground enough that he travels amongst us commoners and not, say, Plutonium Class on planes.
For these reasons I debated whether to approach him to say how much I liked his songs -- or his "work" as is the parlance. I didn't, though. Several people don't know this about me but I'm actually really shy. Any overt display of character is an act of compensation for me. I remember when the site was more popular and I would be approached in random ways, like restaurants, airports, on the street. I learned how to cope with it but I'm a tyro at celebrity compared to him, and I figured his fans were many.
I think there's something neat to being recognized but maybe not the groggy morning after a late-night concert.
See, one time, after a solo rap show I did in a small town outside of Toronto, the next morning, I went to a coffee shop to try shake the cobwebs and, well, wake up, essentially. Rap shows are difficult gigs, specifically if you're headlining. "Headlining" sounds like an honour, but in case of small-time shows like the ones I was doing, what it means is "You're on at 2:00 am."
As I walked into Starbucks I noticed from my periphery a couple staring at me the whole time I was ordering an Earl Grey tea. At the moment I was debating whether to et a scone, I was suddenly hit in my gut with a mixture of regret and doom. You know, when you wonder which was more suspect: Eating cheese nachos at four in the morning or the cheese itself. I saw the sole washroom in the corner and quickly walked towards it. I tried the handle but it was locked. While turning my head towards the cashier to see whether I needed a key or if someone was already in there, the guy stood up from his table to get into my line of vision.
"8W," he said. "I'm a big fan!"
I was thinking at this moment that a big fan would be useful after I was done in there. Almost doubled over in pain, I wondered, in my vanity, what "work" he had in mind and how he came across it. But for some reason I couldn't look him in his eye when I mumbled my thanks. His smile faded as he saw I wasn't being as friendly as I was last night on stage.
He turned to his girlfriend and shrugged, speaking within a volume that I could hear, "I guess a little success gets to people's heads. You do one small show and you forget the little people."
She said something like, "I guess that whole website thing is an act."
At that moment, someone walked out of the washroom, and though I wanted to say something, I had to run in. When I came out, they were gone.
Now, I'm sure Amos Lee didn't have any digestive emergencies, seeing as he was sitting near my gate with a phone to his ear and his computer on his lap. But something about the whole thing freaked me out. I never will forget that Starbucks misunderstanding and, this morning brought it all back.
Even now, thinking back, I wonder whether I should have just said, "Thank you, Mr. Big Fan. I really appreciate your compliment but I'm about to make something pretty creative happen in my pants if I don't make short our little dialogue here."
Which, on second thought, might have kept right in character with what people expected of me during that time.
I opened this page to write something the other day and I sat here for a couple of minutes thinking about what to say. I was distracted by the idea of eating Cheez-Its, though, and you understand how this will inevitably work itself into a growling, blinding, and mandibular ordeal. It could happen to anyone. I come back several days later and Blogger, as keen as ever, saved what I had written as a draft.
I have no recollection of actually typing this but, in its entirety, I had written, "I like boogers". How that translated into my foray on Cheez-Its, I'm not quite certain, nor can I think of any reason I would have to write that. I find myself strangely silent now on the topic of snot.
I was at the airport after the three rockstars and I finished teaching in Ontario and decided to get myself an omelette at the sports bar, seeing as I had some time. I saw China get theirs handed to them by Spain in basketball, despite 7'4" Yao Ming. I was at this table watching the flat screen beyond the bar and, two tables down, another Chinese guy, in a suit and navy tie, sat there doing the same. A few East Indians were at another table and didn't care at all. I realize I'm more Chinese than Spanish but my immediate alliance with China's basketball team was a little surprising. And with my empathy, I also found them hilarious. Gone are the sleek plays and skill of the NBA: Both teams were gold medal efforts, but the ball would hit feet and bounce off court, shots would repeatedly get lobbed towards the basket only to be rejected by the rim, people with wild hair were running around even more wildly. It was an act of Olympic desperation. I couldn't help laughing the whole time.
The Chinese guy turned toward me and I shrugged, "This isn't funny at all to you?"
"This is the Olympics, man! We have to cheer on the motherland!"
The thing is, I was. Or something. I mean I'm as Chinese as I am Canadian. Or maybe I'm proportionately not either. But the point was they were hilarious. And patriotism or not -- and whatever that means within this context -- I wasn't going to hang my head in shame that my people weren't good at the finer points of bouncing and throwing a ball up and down a court.
At this point, a Chinese guy who had been running around in circles prior to finding the ball in his hands, attempted a three-pointer (read: chucked it in the general direction of the backboard) and it was a complete airball, falling at least three feet short of the rim. The Chinese guy next to me coughed back a laugh himself and we both smiled as we finished our breakfast.
(Is my website banned in China now?)
In other news, while walking to my gate this morning, I saw an elderly lady in a wheelchair, trying to roll herself down the corridor. She had a lot of make-up on and large, trendy and gold-emblemed sunglasses, fur-trimmed hat, an expensive coat and a tasteful skirt. By contrast, she had clunky beige shoes that I see nurses wear. I was walking towards the washroom myself so I asked her if I could help push her down to whichever gate she needed. She had a husky, low voice that croaked her gratitude and she pointed toward the washrooms. I'm going there myself, I told her, as we rolled along. We passed first the men's room and she turned her head sharply.
"That's the mens room, ma'am," as I pushed her along further to the ladies' room. She tried to backpedal and I was genuinely confused. "Men's is what I want."
"..." I apologized profusely, wheeled, uh, him in and promptly forgot how urinals work, standing there dumbfounded. I know this is probably a poor time to say something tasteless like how I just met a "tranny granny"... but, darn it, I think I just did.
Word of the Week
Aglet. An aglet is the metal or plastic tube which is wound tightly around the end of your shoelace. It comes from "aiguillette", French for small needle. Is there really some virtue to knowing the word for this? I suppose it's more efficient than saying "the hard plastic thing at the end of your shoelace", but if you use this word, rest assured, it's going to have to accompany even more words in a detailed explanation when all you get is a quizzical stare. I suppose, then, that there is some use for this word: Flaunting. And it really goes to show that there's pretty much a name for everything. I would think the process from which these words come about hinges on a small necessity for it. As long as someone's job is to manufacture these tiny, hard, plastic tubes, pretty soon, he's going to wonder what to call them.
So I've been drinking a lot of Coke; almost twice a day. After I realized I had done this, I felt pretty guilty, what with those rumours going around about how Coke dissolves your teeth on contact, murders babies on sight, melts polar ice caps, etc. But most importantly, Jon, whom some of you still remember as my roommate in Montreal, told me that Coke is directly responsible for my floury gut.
As a result, I've been doing one sit-up each day. For my gut and my guilt, that's my Panglossian "ab-solution". I'll kick the number up if I see any results.
On July 4th, I went to a bar to secretly celebrate the Canada Day I missed three days before. I don't know what most people think they're doing at a crowded, noisy bar. Apparently, they think that people hear what they're saying. I have a hard time with bars and clubs because my previous experience with them saw me with a microphone. Whatever I wanted to say was taken care of by a strong source of kilowatt power. Even if what I had to say was some sniveling account about how awesome I was at rhyming, and how this should somehow translate into greatness in all other scopes of measuring me.
Now with my plebeian resources, I realize that you're either shouting in someone's ear or someone's shouting in yours. And unless it's a yes-or-no question, any story you have needs to be no more than 5 seconds long. There is no room for narrative ribbons.
My kind of place.
Anyway, I came to a realization. Actually, I came to three. I was supposed to meet up with a few friends and upon walking into the bar, I spotted an adjacent room that was equally crowded. I decided I'd check this room out first, so I walked towards it. As I was doing so, a guy started walking in towards me. We were set to collide so I veered to the right and he, noticing this, went to this left. Which was idiotic. So I quickly went to the left. I glanced at him and he was a little chubby but he looked familiar. As I went to the left, he went to the right, and we were seriously going to bump into each other.
At the last second, I said, "Excuse me." And hit something very much like a wall.
A mirror. I think my face-print is still there. I had walked into my own reflection. I don't know if you know what it's like to earnestly attempt to communicate with someone that turns out to be yourself. "Excuse me." I'm such an idiot.
Anyway, as I said, three things bother me about this. The first is that I'm stupid and I walked into myself at a crowded bar of on-lookers. The second: I hadn't even started drinking yet. The third thing is that I thought whoever I was looking at was fat. I mean, I look at myself in the morning, but I'm ready for that. I look at my reflection and I'm like, "Okay, no big deal. So I have another chin. Whatever. No one notices."
But within the hard, critical eye of a stranger sizing up a stranger, my own gauge told me that whoever I was looking at was chubby. Exact words in my brain: "Who's this guy? He's kind of chubby."
I think it takes a lot for me to notice that as the first thing about someone.
Yeah, so maybe one sit-up isn't going to cut it.
So I was watching this concert tonight and the guy next to me, a young guy in his early twenties, in a very quiet part of Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, farted. There's an anatomical sound that is completely and unmistakably a fart. And you really can't mimic it to throw anybody off the trail -- like, "Hey, I know you're alarmed but that was just a funny sound I made with my shoe" -- because the sound gets immediately recorded into everyone's mind and there's no way of matching it with the same sort of trebly authenticity. If you try to imitate one with your mouth and a firmly placed hand -- that phenomenon one discovers in elementary school -- it's too cartoony, unrealistic, and loud. And stuffing your cupped hand instantly into your armpit to try and flap out a similar sound is a dead giveaway.
Here I was, in a classical concert, running down the list of things this guy had at his disposal to calm the sudden social disgrace that could have been avoided had he been just a little less relaxed, when I was suddenly struck by two things: 1) there was nothing he could possibly do, and 2) unless it had something to do with him pretending it was me.
I don't know about you, but I take issue with people who do this.
I spent the next few minutes trying to think of how I could best show those around me, through posture, demeanor and a general, carefree mien, that I wasn't the one who just planted one. I have no idea what one does to go about doing this, but I figured sweating and darting my eyes from corner to corner looked suspicious and was definitely not the way to go. To my annoyance, he wasn't doing that either. In fact, he was now trying to distract me by getting animated during the last movement of the Prokofiev. You know, punching his fist in the air to emphasize obvious downbeats and things like that.
It seems ridiculous to me now that the only thing occupying my mind for the rest of the performance was how one goes about looking more like someone who doesn't fart during a concert. And save from pointing a finger at him and mouthing to everyone "It was him!" I didn't really know what else to do.
I'm currently at the Aspen Music Festival where my intention is to eat as many cheeseburgers as possible. Or so it seems.
Before coming to this tourist trap of various mountains and blue skies, I spent a week in Vancouver with my sister, my brother-in-law, and my nephew. I'm not sure if you know this, but my nephew is officially the cutest baby in the world. Random passerby volunteer this information to me. I pushed him in his stroller down the street and this baby stops traffic. And a girl whom I will not name, on my Facebook page, commented on a recent picture, saying, "Really, truly, he is just about the cutest baby I've ever seen!!"
Please note this girl has no reason to say this and, in fact, she hates me. It's a long story. But you know how some girls wear cute little T-shirts with the most curious and enigmatic words, phrases, or images silk-screened across the chest? Well, that's the beginning of that story.
And it ends with my having been seriously misunderstood.
So this is unequivocal proof of his cuteness. A girl who thinks I'm a Grade-A creep is emerging from the safe regimen of avoiding me at all costs at any given occasion to tell me that my nephew is about the cutest thing in the world. You don't initiate conversation with me unless you have to. And this was an emergency! He's just that cute.
All my friends think the same. And those who don't think the same find themselves placed neatly in my "he's okay but, you know, I'm just not sure how much we have in common" list. I'm kidding. You don't have to think he's cute to be my friend.
Just don't expect me to say hi to you or acknowledge you in any way.
While walking around Vancouver with my sister, I realized a couple of things:
1) A lot of pretty ladies crowded around me as I held him, talking to me and asking me questions.
2) I need an "I'm actually his uncle and I'm single" T-shirt.
I also realized that I'm a man into the big sweep of ideas and not so much the details. For instance, this whole time I've been telling everyone how great it is to be an uncle, how cute my nephew is, how much I love him. And then people ask me how old he is or when he was born or something completely irrelevant like that, and I'm like, "What? I don't know. You're missing the point here. Hello? I love him. That's the point. He's the greatest and we're closer than your Gillette shave, okay?"
It really sucked when I was holding my nephew and I'm all proud of his cute, fuzzy head and these strangers who think I'm the father ask me, "How old is he?" and I stand there and shrug. I know his name. What more do you want?
Nolan. His name is Nolan and, right now, he's going through a very important phase that all budding geniuses do; namely, taking upon himself the task of asking, when coming in contact with random inanimate objects, whether or not he can eat it. His keenness to figure this out results in him shoving any object he can maneuver -- most of the time something twice the size of his head -- into his mouth. It's a little like me during Thanksgiving.
To show you that I'm still objective in praising his well-developed inquisitiveness, he still has a ways to go: I can shove twenty times the amount of paper clips in my mouth and I did it with a speed and ferocity that left him in a gawking, slack-jawed, drool-ridden mess. With an avuncular pat on the head, I tell him, while metal clinks quietly against my teeth, that he'll get there. I mean, he's only six months old.
Aside from that and the cheeseburgers, I'm not really proud of anything that's happened lately.
Being indecisive is not a bad thing. No, wait, maybe it is.
On My Way
While in Japan, I was treated to a cultural feast different than my own. Did you know, for instance, that it's rude to eat while walking on the street? While walking in the train station, devouring fried chicken balls I found in the nearby grocery store with my fingers, I noticed that everyone around me seemed a little grossed out. On second thought, this scenario could stand independent of my being in Japan. Disgusting habits might have problems finding themselves accepted anywhere. But, anyway, that's when I noticed that no one -- no one -- was ever eating or drinking while they were in transit. This might account for their clean streets.
What the Japanese do have, however, are tiny shops and corners that sell miniature meals. A common sight is a man in a business suit, eating something tiny while standing over a counter. For the Japanese, you are either eating or you're walking; the gentle nudge for multi-tasking both is decidedly low-class.
Anyway, speaking of eating habits, in the popular bombardment of sumo wrestling there, I became keenly aware that I had a severe lack of culture and knowledge towards the sport. (I think this mainly because the Japanese reception of the game as a whole is very respectful and serious, yet my maturity for seeing the sobriety of fat men giving each other what appeared to be atomic-sized wedgies failed me everytime. And when I say "failed", I mean "laughed out loud".) So in researching it, I came upon this information through Wikipedia: A "regimen of no breakfast and a large lunch followed by a nap helps rikishi put on weight so as to compete more effectively."
At this point, I realized this describes my daily schedule with a precision so acute that one might say I have been training hard to be over 300 pounds for the better part of this year. I make a mental note to eat breakfast tomorrow and, despite the jetlag, to avoid those post-prandial naps.
What other insights spawning from complete unsophistication do I have? Well, maybe my expectation that people in Japan speak English. They don't. Communicating with the dear people of Osaka meant a lot of miming of actions. For instance, it was a rainy start when we arrived and I needed an umbrella. In my attempts to ask if I could open one of the umbrellas to see how big it was (this umbrella was flat and about the size of half my forearm), I felt like a cross between Mary Poppins and Charlie Chaplin in those old black and whites. Osaka people laugh readily, and this generosity at the lack of comprehension coming from both sides helped me survive the week.
One thing you don't really do, when no one understands each other, is try to be funny. This is because no one laughs and, ultimately, the joke's on you. I asked the clerk at the front desk of my hotel where I could buy shoes. I had sorely appropriated my suitcase and had only my cowboy boots, which didn't appreciate being slogged in the rain. He told me, "The diamond store." (Oh yeah. In Japan, there's a lot of "..." between words that are actually said.)
So I'm like "... Cool. Will I have diamonds in my shoes then?"
He starts nodding his head.
Dave and I were discussing this and we came to the conclusion that when the Japanese nod their heads, they don't necessarily mean "yes". Nor are they actually agreeing with anything. They just mean that they are still involved in the conversation and are gently acknowledging your presence. So when I jokingly asked, "What happens if I want to get non-diamond studded shoes?" there was a lot more hearty nodding, dismissive nodding, as if my last sentence was not a question, but a fancy way of giving him my gratitude.
I ended up in a department store and you know how, when you're at Macy's, it's really hard to get someone to help you? Because there's one person assigned to the hectare spanning from women's shoes to kids' underwear? In Japan, they have twelve (I counted, twelve) workers just in women's shoes. And they are all standing around, waiting to help someone. I walked over to a lady and pointed in the general direction of these sparkly high heels. "Do you have these... but... (point at myself) for me?"
The "..." that followed was more confused than any I had received yet. I stuttered, "No, no, no... I mean... I don't want these... stiletto things. Not me. I'm not... I don't do that. But... shoes... shim bal... for men?" I don't know why I threw in some of the Korean I learned at McGill, which is a little like using German to speak with my grandmother, expecting that to help matters. In my desperation, I was now resorting to classwork I received a "D" in. And I can get an "F" for that logic.
She -- and the Osaka people all over -- are beyond nice and go out of their way to help you. The lady escorted me to the men's shoe department, where a pair of sandals was like $200. Which looks even more intimidating in Japanese yen. (20, 000.) But some things in Japan are as expensive as they seem. Like I saw a small carton of seven strawberries selling for the equivalent of $27. I have no idea where I got my fiber.
Because it definitely wasn't in my chicken balls.
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.
|
