On the long and lonely flight to Portland, I was clearing out my email drafts, and I found this! It is rather titillating, if I do say so myself. It made even ME laugh! Possibly the hilarity of my Parisian experience is still very close to home, or possibly I had a moment of legitimate wittiness. Possibly both! Indeed, the very shut-in and solitary life I lived, filled with the constant whirring of my brain, seems to have produced some of my more memorable writing. I present:
The fandangos go on. And on, and on, and on etc; potentially into infinity. God. Can you imagine? I am steeling myself and girding my loins in preparation for a life of ceaseless weirdness.
George now blows me kisses, and makes no effort to keep the oozing sex out of his voice. “Hello, my sweetheart” he intones with scandalous salaciousness and a thick, heavy Ghanaian accent to boot. Oh, how wonderful my life is.
The psychotic and demonically funny British translator, Ben, now winks at me all the time. And, the other day he greeted me in the following manner: “Hello attractive plump-breasted young woman.” I wonder if this was based in fact, or if it’s just a thing he says? Are by boobies even visible under that wretched tent of a chef’s coat? Oh wait, there is my answer. The starched canvas hangs off my ample mammalian protrusions, descending into my apron without any give. This makes me look, shall we say, a little plump? Actually, the fact that he was able to discern the cause of my largeness as originating in the breast area and not in fact from monstrously glutinous eating habits is quite remarkable. I like him even more now. But here’s the kicker: I’m fairly certain he thinks I have a massive crush on him. Did I mention that he’s forty and is MARRIED and has a SON!!! Really, I’ve brought this tragedy on myself, you know. Let me explain:
It is necessary for me to make eye contact with people with they’re speaking. This is how one conveys attention and interest, as far as I’m concerned. As a translator, you can imagine that Ben speaks quite often. Try every 3 seconds! I look at the chef when he speaks in French, and at Ben when he translates into English. I’ve been told my eye contact can be a bit intense, but what’s a girl to do? What, I ask you? And I laugh at everything he says. Including his mathematical ramblings about cutting the food into semicircles, and then chords, or diameters and radii, and his discourses on the actions of Potassium Chloride etc; on food, for I am of equal nerdiness and actually follow what he’s saying. This is not to stroke his ego in that detestably girlie way that is customarily accompanied by hair flipping, but because I just think he’s that funny. Between the staring and the laughing I believe I’ve instilled in him an unwavering confidence that I love him, and if I take his reaction of winking and breast-observance into account, I do not much think I am mistaken. Shits galore. This sordid tale is accompanied by a secondary misfortune:
Within the same day that my crazily misconstrued signals were taken as indications of Benjamin-ly love, I accidentally made an Irishman think I like him. According to the rest of the world, I am quite a tart, it seems. Ah, if they only knew the true story. While I was looking round for Juan (I know, I am so sad), who is the only one I ACTUALLY have a vested interest in, my eyes kept lighting on this Irish bloke (why shouldn’t I get into the British mood?) I don’t know. I suppose they must be the same height and build or something, because I kept thinking this guy was the pretty Columbian. (i.e. I looked at him A LOT). And then I went into a pastry demonstration given by the pastry TEAM of the French president (salivate away…), and Ben was the translator. So, off I go with my insane eye contact, but the Irish guy was right next to him and I kept looking at him by mistake. Woopsie, wrong man. He was very into it, however, and by the time the class was over I’d unintentionally won over this poor unsuspecting lad. It is just like me to accidentally charm the wrong man. And by accidentally I mean “because my visual accuity is so astoundingly poor that I could not make my eyes look at the right man.” But, no stupid deed goes unpunished!
When I got home, I wanted to take a nice relaxing shower to wash away my sins. Fantastic, and I actually have a shower head here, unlike my closet in Marfa. Things were going swimmingly well (haha, get it?), and I was shampooing away a la orgasmic Herbal Essences commercial, when a rogue stream of water projected itself merrily into my eye. Smack dab in the middle. Punishment for the untamable orifice? I think so. All this time I was worrying about my poor little blisters, but it is my eyes and not my feet that were destined to by outrageously abused. I actually wouldn’t call them blisters. Realistically, they bear more semblance to gaping wounds than trifling blisters, but oh well. See, try as I might I am utterly unable to prevent disaster in my life. Clearly looking out for my physical well being and fending off bodily harm is not a particular talent of mine. I am accepting this and moving on.
Last night I got out of class at 9:15 PM!!! Tres, tres tard, I know. But that is not the point. As I was leaving, the guy that was mopping the floors told me to have “un bon weekend.” I wished him the same in French. He was sooo excited that I spoke French, and asked me where I was from. He, evidently, is from Mali. He insists that I go there on my vacation. Yeah, I’ll get right on that, Freak! Then he wanted to know my name, and out of politeness I asked what his was. And then he wanted to know what time I was in the locker rooms. Huh? I know. I didn’t really get it, but he kept asking the same thing. At what time could I be found in the locker rooms? I told him it varied, but he was getting really upset at this point so I said I’m often there at 8:30 in the morning. He subtracted the “often” from what I’d said. What if this poor man is just puttering around in the girls’ locker rooms at ungodly hours because of this? Wait, to be fair, I was still suspecting only the most innocent of motives on his part. But he wouldn’t really let me go (we were in a one-foot-wide hallway below ground. Hell, anyone?), and again verified my name. I asked him his (this compulsive politeness is becoming a problem for me), and since it was an unpronounceable African jumble, I wrinkled my brow. This upset him and he made me wait while he wrote it down for me- on a piece of cardboard he ripped from a box that was resting above the lockers. Desperation? Yes. And then he made me write mine down (I was at this point a tad bit nervous, so I misspelled my last name as a precaution). And then he asked me if I didn’t have a phone number. Ahhhhh. I told him no and hightailed it out of there in as mannered a fashion as possible. Apparently I can’t I even get hit on in normal ways. I am resigned to a life of total and absolute calamity.
On the way home, I got stuck behind a garbage truck. The fellow hanging off the back end of it was giving himself a self-administered spanking. Errr…? It was to the effect of Giddyup, so it ended up being rather humorous. We caught each others’ eyes and smiled. He saw that I’d been attempting to pass the stinky vehicle, but since it had accelerated I resigned myself to riding behind it. This sage young man knew that the truck would be stopping soon, however, and swept his hand grandly in a half-bow to indicate that I could pass if I like. Gallantry on garbage trucks. Only me. Only me.
Demain I shall trot over to my favorite hole-in-the-wall resto for some saucisson and bleu d’Auvergne. And…regime out the window.
Ta ta!
Leave A Comment