So here we are in 2010. Hooray! I didn't get to write as much as I'd have liked in 2009 and frankly, it bothers me. Eventually I'll get around to writing up all the funny things that happened, as promised, if only so I remember them for the grandkids.
Anyway, I made many new years' resolutions for this year, as usual, and among them were to get back into the blogging saddle and write regularly again. I have missed it, and apparently some of you random strangers have too. Others haven't at all because they read my Facebook status updates or Tweets and feel like they hear more than enough from me. But enough about me and my resolutions. (If you really want to know about them, I suppose I can always write about that later, too.) The point of all of this is that the new year has already brought some fabulous little tales. Most of which, if they hadn't happened to me personally, I wouldn't believe.
Today, for example, I got the following message on my Facebook page from my friend Christele in Paris: "Hi Noelle, received a text from you yesterday... Tu me demandais l'addition... ** Was kind of funny, in a 4th- dimension-y way, as it came out of nowhere, in the bleak midwinter..."
** You asked me for the check.
Naturally, my first response was to freak out and prepare to call AT&T and demand to know why my phone is sending out international text messages. Stranger things have happened in my time with AT&T mobile. Instead, I wrote the following response: "WHAT?! Are you serious? From which number? I definitely didn't send you any texts..."
And Christele responded: "Bizarre... It read "La addition je vous ple?". Thought it was a private joke, sent to me by mistake. The sender's number ended by 0587. Could it be a number u used in La Jolla? I did save it under your name. Then, it might have been your dad's answer to my happy 2010 SMS :-))"
I should have known. My father only knows how to say one thing in French - how to ask for the check at a restaurant. I've told him for years that he should stop volunteering that phrase or he'll end up picking up checks for other people all over the place. But clearly some habits are hard to break.
I guess I had used my dad's phone to call Christele at some point during the week of our wedding, and she saved his number as mine. She then included his number when she sent out a mass "Bonne annee!" text to all her friends as the clock struck midnight in Paris. And my father didn't do as most people probably would, ignoring the message or writing back "WHO IS THIS?!?!?!"
Nope, my dad asks for the check!
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4 comments:
In NY three years ago, to ask for the bill, my DAD (who can't say a single word in english) used to hold out his credit card above his head until the waiter saw !! It couldn't help very much the rather bad image of french travelers throughout the world, so I used to grab the card as soon as he took it out of his wallet, like a pickpocket !
Happy New Year !
Hmm Jeff, I could tell you a very good story about my father attempting to ask a waiter for milk at breakfast in the south of France when I was about 10. But for my dad's sake, I won't. Let's just say it scarred me for life ... and spurred me on to learn other languages! :)
I'm avid for language misunderstandings, it's sometimes so funny... and embarrassing. It's a good way to test people's humor !
I have given up on making New Years resolutions now as I have made far too many in the past and can't remeber one in all of that time that I have actually kept to.
So next year my resolution will be to have no resolutions. This way i should be able to keep to it lol :)
Dubai Don
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