(I overhear this conversation between my English teacher and one of the other English teachers before class. My teacher is holding her computer charger.)
Teacher: “So, you know, cats are like sharks. They don’t bite things to bite them; they bite them to feel them since they don’t have hands. Well, [Cat] quickly found out just how ‘spicy’ this wire was yesterday.”
(I’ve just woken up and I’m walking by the front door of my apartment when someone knocks. Half asleep, I start to reach for the deadbolt, and then I pause.)
Me: “Who is it?”
Stranger: *pause* “A stranger.”
Me: “Nope.”
Stranger: “Oh. Okay. Bye.”
(And he left. Kind of creepy, but at least he was honest?)
(I am an American living in Mexico in the 90s. I’m ice skating with my girlfriend when “The Time Warp” comes on the PA.)
Me: “Oh, this is from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
Girlfriend: “What’s that?”
Me: “It’s an American movie about a transvestite scientist who creates a Frankenstein-like man to be their personal sex slave. But it turns out the doctor is an alien. In the US they have midnight showings of the movie, where the men wear women’s underwear and people say all these crazy quotes and throw things at the screen.”
Girlfriend: “I see.”
(It was then that I learned there are some concepts that simply do not transcend cultures.)
(I’m a passenger on the bus. A guy gets on and sits down in the seat across from me. The second the bus starts moving, he pulls the “stop requested” rope and gets off at the next stop, which, thanks to the huge cluster of stops on this street, is barely a block away from where he got on.)
Me: “You’re getting off already? Didn’t you just get on?”
Passenger: “Yep. My bus pass expires today and I wanted to give it one last taste of being useful before I throw it away.”
(Well, at least he didn’t pay $2 to ride for barely a minute.)
(I am a fourth-grade teacher.)
Student: “Mr. [My Name], do you like oysters?”
Me: “Yes.”
Student: “Great! I’ll bring you some.”
Me: *wondering how he intends to do that, since we live in Missouri* “Oh, you don’t have to do that.”
Student: “It’s no problem. I’ll bring ’em as soon as my dad’s done castrating the bulls.”
Me: “You really don’t have to do that.”
