Tonight's routine

Hello.  It’s good to be back! I’ve been in America.  And guess what? I got fatter! I mean I was fat before I left but now I’m huge.  It isn’t just none of my clothes fit me, no clothes fit.  Anything I put on, I feel like humpty dumpty wearing a size 8 bikini.

Thing is, in America, the food portions are huge! Everything in American is huge and spaced out. The offices are really spaced out.  When you got within twenty feet of somebody in the corridor they’d stop and say “excuse me.” And I think that’s because they’d got a huge personal space, either that or it’s like the thing – you know they say Chinese people say westerners smell of cheese, it might just be that I’m English and I smell of despair.

There’s no way I’m ever going to be as positive as these people. They ask you how you are and you say “I’m alright” – and they look at you like you’ve just done this huge negativity fart.  You ask Americans how they are, they’re “Awesome!” or “Excellent” or one guy I heard “VERY EXCELLENT.  This really did happen to me, I walked into a coffee shop and the guy at the counter said “Good afternoon sir – I hope you achieved everything you wanted to achieve today.”  And it did cross my mind to say “Well I did manage to restrain myself from punching  a barista in the face.”

But the cruel trick that America plays on you is giving you the impression that they’re speaking the same language.  I kept going to this Mall, I don’t know why I kept going there because nobody understood a fucking word I said.  And the feeling was mutual.  I think it’s particularly bad when you understand all the individual words, but you know you’ve absolutely no idea what they mean when they’re joined up together.  For instance.  I bought some T-shirts in a clothes shop and when I got to the tills, the woman at the till said to me “Did you get help in the mens.” That’s what she said “Did you get help in the mens.”  Now, I must explain at this point, the reason I was buying a new T-shirt was because I’d spilt Iced tea all down myself in the Japanese restaurant. And this was even more confusing because I was intending to go to the Gents and change into one of these T-shirts, just as soon as I’d managed to buy one. So I was really confused part of me was interpreting what she was saying as “Did your mother dress you? You retard.”  And part of me was thinking “Is she really saying that if I was gay and went cottaging, I’d be even so useless at that, I’d need someone to show me how to give a blow job?” But of course another part of me was thinking “That’s not likely is it? I mean she’s a shop assistant, she’s being polite.”  Anybody guess what she was asking?  Yeah, that’s right.  To which I replied “No! I managed all by myself!!!” Nary a titter.  I suppose it might have been funnier if I didn’t have the big Iced T stain on my shirt.

And, I can tell this – I checked with Ming and I don’t think it’s racist.  Just before I bought the T-shirts and got accused of maladroit toilet trading, I’d been at the Teriyaki stand in the food court.  And I ordered my chicken Teriyaki and the Japanese lady said to me “Boiwed Wice or Fwied Wice.”  Look I’m not being a hideous racist.  I promise you that’s actually what she said.  And I must admit at first, I was a bit confused and I asked her to repeat it and she said “Boiwed Wice of Fwied Wice.”  But then I got it and said, confidently, “I’ll have FRIED RICE PLEASE.” And she was “What? What you want? I don’t unnerstand?”

“FRIED RICE PLEASE.”

“I don’t unnerstand.”

“Er, I’m sorry, what was the question.” She thinks for a second.

“STEAMED WICE or fwied wice.”

“Oh fuck it, I’ll have the day-old sushi.”

 

But you start to get paranoid.  Well, I actually I start to get paranoid, you’d probably be fine.  But you start to worry you can’t find shoe polish is a supermarket that’s about the size of Wales and you start to worry that you’d ask for “shoe polish” and they’d say “I’m sorry” and you’d say “shoe polish” and they’d say “I’m sorry.” And you say “you know the stuff you put on shoes to make them shiny.” And they say “Oh! You mean COBBLER’S JISM.”

And you say “Yes! Yes! Oh God! No, NO, NO!!!”

Thanks very much, goodnight.

 

Posted via email from The Ginger Mumbly