DYSENTERY, PARIS & LOOSE TRANSLATIONS

I am so excited!  I recently returned from Europe after a two-month stay, only to discover that someone I had met in Paris had dropped me a line.

I am also quite proud of my ability to translate it.  I didn’t know any French at all before visiting Paris, but within a day or two, I was jabbering away like a native!  As a matter of fact, here is the letter, with my expert translation capitalized and in parentheses.

Mars 2012  (MAILED FROM MARS IN 2012)

Bonjour!  (WASSUP?)

Comment vas tu?  (I TRUST YOU HAVE RECOVERED FROM THE DYSENTERY). J’ai tres bien (THE PEN OF MY AUNT IS IN THE GARDEN OF MY UNCLE).  Quelle heur est t’il?  (DID YOU SPEND HOURS EXPRESSING DISGUST AT THE SMALLNESS OF THE MONA LISA?)  Moi, aussi  (MY BUTT IS THE VICTIM OF PAINFUL CONSTIPATION).  C’est vrai, il ne pas chocolate  (COULD YOU PLEASE SEND SOME EX-LAX?)  Madonna aussi  (I UNDERSTAND THAT MADONNA HAS THE SAME PROBLEM).  L plume de ma tante est en le jardin de mon oncle  (WHILE IN PARIS, DID YOU EAT MUCH SPOILED FOOD COVERED IN RICH CREAM SAUCES?)  Oui  (ALSO, SEND ME SOME NAUGHTY MAGAZINES).  Comment s’appelle t’il?  (IS IT TRUE THAT THE TERM “FRENCH KISSING” IS DERIVED FROM WHAT U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS ARE COMPELLED TO DO TO FRENCH HEADS OF STATE’S NETHER REGIONS IN ORDER TO SECURE ANY SORT OF EVEN THE REMOTEST COOPERATION?)  Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?  (HAVE YOU PURCHASED A NEW COUCH?)  Present-nous, veux tu?  (GIVE ME THE NEWSPAPER BEFORE I BECOME VEXED).  Des saucises, sans doubt  (THE SPAGHETTI SAUCE IS FULL OF SAND).

Au revoir  (LATER, DUDETTE)

Jean Paul  (GEORGE RINGO)

If you have anything you need translated, be sure to send it my way.  I’m always glad to help.

TRICK FISH, EXORCISMS & SURPRISE PARTIES

Did you have pets when you were little?  We did.

My parents purchased a pair of hamsters for my brother and me, because they wanted us to witness the "miracle of birth."
        Well, they'd be sorry...
        My little brother, Markie, ever interested in anything he was too young to understand, stepped up to Mom one day.

"Mommy, we have a male and a female hamster, right?"
        "That's right."
        "And they're going to have babies, right?"
        "Uh huh."

"And they do something called 'mating' to make those babies, right?"
        "Yes."

"Then I have a question."

"What is it?"

"When you and Daddy made me, did Daddy chase you around the room and bite you on the leg?"
        So much for the hamsters.

After that, we had a series of animals that met, shall we say, an early demise.  We had tropical fish that Markie ran in, all excited, one day to report on.
        "Hey, Mom!  Our fish are really smart!  They learned a trick all by themselves!"
        "Really?"

"Yeah!  They can swim upside down!"
        They were buried at sea, so to speak.

From there, he had parakeets that could lie on their backs for hours and hours, turtles that could concentrate so well that they never moved, a frog that croaked (with and without noise), a guinea pig that had a massive coronary when my brother arranged a surprise party for it, and a rabbit that just couldn't take it anymore, and chewed through an electrical cord.  We found the suicide note under a carrot.

Next, he had a kitten that hung in for quite a while.  It alarmed the neighbors that something at our house actually lived, and there was talk that it was possessed by evil spirits.  The kitten subsequently disappeared, and I contend, to this day, that it was kidnapped and taken to the local church for exorcism.

Then there was the hognose snake, which mysteriously "got lost."  My father found it when he put his hand in the box of nails in the garage and was met with attitude in the strike position.  Markie's bottom was met with my father's palm in the flat position.

But you know what really scares me?

Markie is now in veterinary college.