Sunday
was intended to be our restful day after such a packed week. But
apparently we can never rest without the crazy coming out to play.
If you’re familiar with the culture of essentially anywhere other than America, it is extremely rude when someone cooks something for you not to eat it. Or worse, to take it back to them and have them “fix” it. I would kind of equate it to getting a present from someone. It doesn’t matter if that sweater is covered in dancing unicorns wearing Santa hats; when grandma comes to visit you damn well better be wearing it with a smile (actually that sweater sounds pretty awesome). So when Orphan Hat the Rude came down to breakfast Sunday morning and asked us if it would be inappropriate (in a way that said “I don’t care if this is inappropriate but I’ll ask you anyways”) if she took back the eggs Lena made for us to “actually cook them” and then WHILE Lena was cooking something else slopped them into the pan to cook them herself, we were absolutely in shock. It made it even worse that usually we just get kasha for breakfast and anything else is a treat. Then she proceeded to tell other volunteers that Lena would make eggs any way they wanted. AND she did all of this after us telling her it was completely horrifically inappropriate. Lena looked like she was ready to use the ice cream knife (which is literally a murder weapon out of Clue) on her and stopped speaking to us.
So, later that day Becky, Vic, and I thought it would be a good idea to run out to Carousel to get Lena a we’re-sorry-you’re-surrounded-by-dumbasses card. For the record, Hallmark really needs to start marketing those because I’m pretty sure they would at least quintuple their sales. What we did not take into consideration was that it was unbearably humid earlier that day, which in Russia means that it is about to rain the wrath of a thousand weeping volunteers sometime in the immediate future. And of course, that immediate future was exactly when we decided to step out of the home base.
SPECIAL NOTE TO CALIFORNIANS: That H&M “rain jacket” you purchased for its seeming functionality and attractive cut will protect you about as much as covering yourself in a layer of toilet paper. By the time you arrive at your destination you will look dry but let me emphasize as much as I possibly can that you will not be. You will, in fact, be SO WET that every piece of exposed (and as you will later find out, unexposed) clothing will have become about 4 shades darker. There will only be 3 ways in which people will be able to find out you are soaking wet:
1. The neck up. Your face: It will look like you’ve been weeping/melting. It will also look like you’re dying if you, like me, are allergic to salt water ie rain. Your hair: It will look like you’re drunk and forgot to take your clothes off before you got in the shower. And it will also be frizzy. Yes. The simultaneous “wet-frizz.”
2. When someone bumps into you and feels your wet rag of a body. Then they will judge you. But it’s fine because you’re at the Russian CostCo buying a cake so you’re pretty much at a low. They have every right to judge you. I judge you too.
3. The trail you leave. You will be so wet that not only will you leave a series of puddles from excess shoe (sandal, to be specific. Because you’re super prepared) water upon entry, but for the entire 10 minutes you are in the store. That’s right. You’ll be wet to the point that you’ll be dripping the whole time you’re there. And after you leave. And after you get home and deliver the present.
When we arrived back home, we (Vic: the only one of us who can speak and write in Russian) decided the broken Russian between our three tiny brains could muster up enough to actually write in the card. It read something as follows:
“Dear Lena,
Sorry - American Idiots. We love when you cook food. Breakfast. Lunch. We love to you.”
So obviously she loved it because who wouldn’t love the work of three seemingly mentally challenged wet puppies? Then she showed us her new “real baby” doll (you know what I’m talking about. TLC did a special on them with crazy ladies who get these dolls that look like real babies and then pretend they are alive).
Later that night we sat around the pastry platter and listen to Basil regale us with stories of his life in New Zealand as a dairy farmer as Becky planned for her future career as a cow herder. The most interesting of these stories were about Basil and the local wildlife aka his neighbors’ dogs. Don’t get me wrong. I am morally against the mistreatment of animals. I think doing anything to harm one is horrible. But I am also morally for all comedy. And these stories were pure comedy. Especially the story of the dog and the turps. Apparently Basil noticed one day that the cream he would leave out would mysteriously go missing in the middle of the night. So, one night he stayed up to try and figure out what was going on. He found his neighbor’s dog drinking the cream in the middle of the night so he grabbed an oiling can of turpentine and squirted it up the dog’s butt and the dog went BOLTING down the hill and never came back.
By far the best part of the story, though was our reaction to it because we couldn’t at all fathom doing this in a way that wasn’t hilarious. Vic began picturing herself on a farm seeing her dog post-turps and thinking to herself, “AN EXCITING NEW GAME?! You turps my dog I TURPS YOU!!!” and then climbin’ in yo windows and turpsing you in the middle of the night in a vicious turps-battle.
In all, it was a good thing Lena wasn’t there and couldn’t speak English well enough to understand what we were talking about because if she were Orphan Hat would have definitely been getting a good turpsing that night.
If you’re familiar with the culture of essentially anywhere other than America, it is extremely rude when someone cooks something for you not to eat it. Or worse, to take it back to them and have them “fix” it. I would kind of equate it to getting a present from someone. It doesn’t matter if that sweater is covered in dancing unicorns wearing Santa hats; when grandma comes to visit you damn well better be wearing it with a smile (actually that sweater sounds pretty awesome). So when Orphan Hat the Rude came down to breakfast Sunday morning and asked us if it would be inappropriate (in a way that said “I don’t care if this is inappropriate but I’ll ask you anyways”) if she took back the eggs Lena made for us to “actually cook them” and then WHILE Lena was cooking something else slopped them into the pan to cook them herself, we were absolutely in shock. It made it even worse that usually we just get kasha for breakfast and anything else is a treat. Then she proceeded to tell other volunteers that Lena would make eggs any way they wanted. AND she did all of this after us telling her it was completely horrifically inappropriate. Lena looked like she was ready to use the ice cream knife (which is literally a murder weapon out of Clue) on her and stopped speaking to us.
So, later that day Becky, Vic, and I thought it would be a good idea to run out to Carousel to get Lena a we’re-sorry-you’re-surrounded-by-dumbasses card. For the record, Hallmark really needs to start marketing those because I’m pretty sure they would at least quintuple their sales. What we did not take into consideration was that it was unbearably humid earlier that day, which in Russia means that it is about to rain the wrath of a thousand weeping volunteers sometime in the immediate future. And of course, that immediate future was exactly when we decided to step out of the home base.
SPECIAL NOTE TO CALIFORNIANS: That H&M “rain jacket” you purchased for its seeming functionality and attractive cut will protect you about as much as covering yourself in a layer of toilet paper. By the time you arrive at your destination you will look dry but let me emphasize as much as I possibly can that you will not be. You will, in fact, be SO WET that every piece of exposed (and as you will later find out, unexposed) clothing will have become about 4 shades darker. There will only be 3 ways in which people will be able to find out you are soaking wet:
1. The neck up. Your face: It will look like you’ve been weeping/melting. It will also look like you’re dying if you, like me, are allergic to salt water ie rain. Your hair: It will look like you’re drunk and forgot to take your clothes off before you got in the shower. And it will also be frizzy. Yes. The simultaneous “wet-frizz.”
2. When someone bumps into you and feels your wet rag of a body. Then they will judge you. But it’s fine because you’re at the Russian CostCo buying a cake so you’re pretty much at a low. They have every right to judge you. I judge you too.
3. The trail you leave. You will be so wet that not only will you leave a series of puddles from excess shoe (sandal, to be specific. Because you’re super prepared) water upon entry, but for the entire 10 minutes you are in the store. That’s right. You’ll be wet to the point that you’ll be dripping the whole time you’re there. And after you leave. And after you get home and deliver the present.
When we arrived back home, we (Vic: the only one of us who can speak and write in Russian) decided the broken Russian between our three tiny brains could muster up enough to actually write in the card. It read something as follows:
“Dear Lena,
Sorry - American Idiots. We love when you cook food. Breakfast. Lunch. We love to you.”
So obviously she loved it because who wouldn’t love the work of three seemingly mentally challenged wet puppies? Then she showed us her new “real baby” doll (you know what I’m talking about. TLC did a special on them with crazy ladies who get these dolls that look like real babies and then pretend they are alive).
Later that night we sat around the pastry platter and listen to Basil regale us with stories of his life in New Zealand as a dairy farmer as Becky planned for her future career as a cow herder. The most interesting of these stories were about Basil and the local wildlife aka his neighbors’ dogs. Don’t get me wrong. I am morally against the mistreatment of animals. I think doing anything to harm one is horrible. But I am also morally for all comedy. And these stories were pure comedy. Especially the story of the dog and the turps. Apparently Basil noticed one day that the cream he would leave out would mysteriously go missing in the middle of the night. So, one night he stayed up to try and figure out what was going on. He found his neighbor’s dog drinking the cream in the middle of the night so he grabbed an oiling can of turpentine and squirted it up the dog’s butt and the dog went BOLTING down the hill and never came back.
By far the best part of the story, though was our reaction to it because we couldn’t at all fathom doing this in a way that wasn’t hilarious. Vic began picturing herself on a farm seeing her dog post-turps and thinking to herself, “AN EXCITING NEW GAME?! You turps my dog I TURPS YOU!!!” and then climbin’ in yo windows and turpsing you in the middle of the night in a vicious turps-battle.
In all, it was a good thing Lena wasn’t there and couldn’t speak English well enough to understand what we were talking about because if she were Orphan Hat would have definitely been getting a good turpsing that night.
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