May 17, 2007

Down slopes from here

At work yesterday, a colleague who is at least ten years older than me and is originally from an eastern European country (this will become relevant infomration in just a moment. Please hang in there.) bumped into me in the kitchenette conveniently located just across from my office.

We were making tea and chit-chatting when she realized it was my birthday.

(Perhaps the party hat, streamers and plate of cupcakes gave it away. Or the fact that I kept spontaneously yelling “GUESS WHAT? IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!” every 7.5 minutes. Or maybe it was the two – TWO – new wrinkles.)

“It eez your birthday?” she said, lighting up like Robin Williams on a bender. No, really, just like that exactly, only harder to understand. “Eenjoy eet!” she continued, “…Because you are steeeel fresh!”

“Fresh?” I was confused. “What am I, a dairy product?”

Clearly, we were having language barrier issues. Or perhaps I was a tad bit defensive about my steadily climbing age. Either way, I wasn’t backing down.

“I didn’t realize there was an expiration date,” I quipped. At which she burst unconsolably into laughter. Ten minutes later, she recovered, and as she left she threw back over her shoulder one final, confused, heavily-accented blow:

“Oh, to be young and beeeeautivul. Eeet eees all down slopes from heeere.”

Say it aint so.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So much Yakov Smirnoff being some capitalist parody of Russia.

After her saying something like that you should've responded with,"Then I suppose you're at the bottom?"

Then she probably would've replied,"You funny Americans!"

On a totally different note the word verification to post is "vjvag" There's a dirty joke there involving Kennedy from MTV there, but I just can't make it out.

Trebuchet said...

I heart word verification jokes. ESPECIALLY when they include the word "vag". Thank you for the chuckle, pulp. Mine sucks: it's "shfviglk".

So, yeah.

Regina Filangi said...

My birthday was the 17th of May. May birthdays are the best birthdays. don't ask why, just believe me.