Two young women, possibly teenagers, are having a loud and animated conversation at my checkout lane.
Customer #1: “No, if they say you’re under arrest, you just say you’re over arrest. And then they have to let you go.”
Customer #2: “Oh, over arrest, like ‘I’m so over it’?”
Customer #1: “Exactly! It’s a secret hack, like those special fries at In-N-Out. My daddy is a lawyer, so I know these things…”
And off they went into the wild… with the ability to drive and vote…
A woman and her young son, maybe around six or seven, are checking out at the till. The son is playing a game on a phone, and something apparently goes wrong.
Child: “What a fudging, son of a biscuit, dingle-dapping, slart-blasting, mudder-trucking, blancmange-brained bum-spray!”
Mum: *To me, acknowledging my curious face* “I’ve told him that he loses an hour of playtime every time he swears. He’s gotten… creative.”
Me: “I’m going to have to write some of those down!”
A customer is looking confused in our medicine aisle. We are by no means a pharmacy, and I don’t know much about off-the-shelf medicines, but I figure I can help if they’re confused with our products.
Me: “Can I help you, sir?”
This man replies in broken English.
Customer: “I told I need stronger blood. I look for medicine to make strong my homo goblins.”
Me: “Pardon me, your what?”
Customer: “Homo goblins.”
Mercifully, a coworker is passing by.
Coworker: “Iron supplements, to increase haemoglobin production. I’ll show you where they are, sir.”
God bless that coworker…
I’m an American in Japan, and my boyfriend is Japanese. My parents decided to come visit my boyfriend and me for Christmas, and together we plan to go on a short trip. However, my boyfriend and his family don’t speak much English, while my parents don’t speak much Japanese, so my parents decided to study Japanese while my boyfriend studied a little English so they could meet in the middle.
Today, my mom called because she was excited to tell me all she has learned.
Mom: “彼氏は美味しいですか？” “Kareshi ha oishiidesuka?”
That translates to “Is your boyfriend delicious?”
When we laughed, she immediately fixed it and changed 美味しい/oishii (delicious) to 優しい/yasashi (friendly), but we were already all laughing so hard.
I can’t help but feel like the luckiest person in the world because both my boyfriend and my parents love me so much they’re willing to learn foreign languages (and incredibly difficult ones, at that) so that they can communicate with the other half of my life.
Me: “I’m afraid I’m booked all afternoon. Are you free before then?”
Client: “Sure, I can be there in the morning.”
Me: “What time?”
Client: “Any time after noon.”
Me: “That’s in the afternoon, sir.”
Client: “Well, whatever you want to call it.”
