You know, I was having kind of a blue evening tonight, and I decided to go shopping. Yes, yes, I know that it is a dangerous thing when my moods can be affected by retail success, and I am coming off as a rather stereotypical female here. I'll defend myself on that front some other day. Besides, I went to Goodwill. While sometimes shopping can only worsen a bad mood (see "Bathing Suits, Shopping For"), the find of a good bargain can make my week. For instance, this evening, I came home with - get ready for it - a bright yellow rain slicker! I've haven't had a rain slicker since second grade or so, when I had a reversible one that was solid blue or white with blue polka dots, depending on how you wore it. This one is much, much cooler.
It's a little silly how much this rain slicker (not rain coat, that's not as much fun to say) excites me. "I'm going to look like the Morton's Salt girl!" I said to whoever was close enough to hear me talking to myself. Then, later tonight when I was looking for images of said little girl to show to you, I found out that I have been misinformed about her and that she wears a bright yellow dress, not a slicker.
I'm going to look even cooler than the Morton's Salt girl!
Thing 2: Line of Demarcation.
I've been getting a lot of emails in Portuguese. I know you all have very high opinions of my intelligence, but sadly, I do not speak Portuguese. These were emails from actual people who were trying to send forwards to another girl named Sandra, presumably one who does speak Portuguese. I would sometimes get as many as a dozen a day. I don't even know if they were good forwards or just a bunch of good luck nonsense, in which case, I wish to know what sort of exceptions there are to the chain letter bad luck ruling. I feel like not knowing the language is a very good excuse.
In any case, I went to one of those websites that will translate a small amount of text into any language for free and entered the phrase "Please stop sending me messages. You have the wrong address." Out came, I assume, the Portuguese equivalent. I wanted to enter something much more elaborate, for instance:
Long ago and far away, the Pope drew a line on the world, giving Portugal some room to be fruitful and multiply without tripping over Spaniards all the time. Regardless of whether the Pope had any right to do this, the land where I was born some centuries later was not affected. Therefore, I cannot understand a single word in these emails. I am up late at night, fearful that I am missing great pieces of literature or insightful discussion, just because of the way a dead Catholic arbitrarily drew a line. Please, cease in sending these emails to me, so that if I cannot read them, I will no longer suffer in the wondering of what I cannot understand.
However, since I was using a questionable translation tool, I thought it best to stick to a simple message. I started replying to these emails with my translated message. Thankfully, they have stopped, and I am at peace once more.
Thing 3: Something by M.C. Escher's fat cousin.
Phone call, 11:33 AM
Sandra: Hello?
Josh: Hi. I made a moebius strip of bacon.
Sandra: You did what?
Josh: A moebius strip of bacon. I just thought you wanted to know. I have to go now, because I'm cooking bacon.
No comments:
Post a Comment