Evendays

Wife, Son 1 and Son 2 are all Sherlock Holmes’ fans. I just learned last night at the dinner table that the famous detective was a drug user. I asked which drug and found out it was heroine.

The conversation shifted to how you take certain drugs. "Can you sniff heroine?", Daughter asked. No, we answered. You inject heroine.

Son 2 corrected Daughter. "For your information, you don’t sniff cocaine. I think the proper term is snork!", which absolutely cracked us all up and made it nearly impossible to finish our meal.

Then Son 2 kindly consented to let me write about it all on today’s post…

I read a report yesterday that about 30% of the kids who are in Fresno elementary schools have English as their second language, and that there are over 70 languages represented in the school district. This reminds me of Lausanne where over half of the first graders in our neighborhood are not French mother tongue.

I speak American nearly down-right perfect. But I’m often caught "not understanding". For example, a few years ago while checking out at a grocery store the check-out cashier looked into my eyes and said: Paper or Plastic? Stunned, I thought a moment and answered: I’ll be paying cash. To which she replied: Paper or Plastic? I took out my wallet and laid the bills out on the plastic counter and said, "I’ll pay cash." She rolled her eyes and said really slowly: Do you want a PAPER bag or a PLASTIC bag? I sheepishly chose paper and walked out with my change (metal) and groceries.

This year, the question at the checkout was "Credit or Debit?" to which I intelligently replied, "What?". "CREDIT or DEBIT?", repeated the check out person. Now, this is bizarre, I thought. They’re asking me if I want them to debit my account or credit my account. Shoot, I’ll pick CREDIT any time.

Which is what I did.

So today, to all you USA residents, please talk slowly, enunciate, and don’t roll your eyes.