How about you telling us some Halloween stories? Spooky, funny, embarrassing, we're all ears!!!
Remember be safe and drive safe tonight, there's lots of little kids out, all jacked up on excitement and sugar.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
So, I was looking around for something to post that had to do with Charles Manson or the Family and Halloween. You'd think with all the talk of Satanism and Witches there would be a little something but I couldn't find anything worth while. This pumpkin carved in Charlie's likeness will have to do.
So I’m in central Mexico touring around and acting like I know what the hell I’m doing. You know, being all American-y and stuff. I was suffering from a headache which originated from praying too hard that morning. I was praying for my hangover to go away, but God and Jesus just let me suffer.
ReplyDeleteSo without the benefit of divine intervention, I was on my own in an area where Spanish was actually the primary language. But the stores are different in that you don’t browse aisles, but enter a small shop with a counter and professorial person in a white lab coat. No problem as I was armed with two years of high school Spanish, from a California public institution. Of course I couldn’t remember the word for aspirin, but figured I could combine my talents in pantomime, along with a descriptor of what it was I sought.
Entering the pharmacy I was greeted by a young woman who said “Digame?” So far so good, that means ‘may I help you’ in casual dialect, she’s talking to this gringo like he’s native. Damn I’m good, and humble.
So I respond by telling her “Mi calabaza duele”, while holding my hands and waving them around my head. I had told her… “My head hurts”. She gave me a bemused look which as an American, I took to mean…. Say it louder and slower! MI CALABAZA DUELE. I abandoned the hand gestures and resorted to eye contact.
She disappears to get my aspirin, I assumed, but instead she returns with two more people. She indicates I need to say this yet again. I oblige and even try to add a little Spanish panache to my phrase. Again, stunned silence, pause, and then pointing followed by doubled over laughter. WTF?
Doesn’t matter, because one of them managed to show me a bottle of Bayer and I made the purchase, and like the cosmopolitan I truly know I am, found relief.
Later that night the hotel bartender asked me how my visit was (in flawless English). I told him about my experience in the pharmacy and how I couldn’t remember the word for aspirin, which he informed me, was… aspirina. Man was it really just one letter different? And how I told them my head hurt, upon which I repeated my second year Spanish sentence.
He gave me the same fixed stare before laughing. OK, what am I saying?
Well, the word for ‘head’ is ‘cabeza’ and I said ‘calabaza’, three times, LOUD. Yep, ‘calabaza’ doesn’t mean head, but was a perfect pronunciation of ‘pumpkin’. MY PUMPKIN HURTS! What’s with you foreigners? Can’t you see MY PUMPKIN HURTS?
So I learned a few things while practicing a foreign tongue. Unless you are in fact fluent, stick to talking American wherever you go. And secondly, if you happen to have injured your pumpkin, forget about getting any help in Zacatecas, cuz they will just cruelly laugh at your injured gourd.
Good story, Farf. It made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was about 12 I met up with a dozen or so friends on Halloween. We were too old for trick-or-treating but we were armed to the teeth with rotten eggs.
ReplyDeleteWe wandered to a nearby train trestle that had a 3 foot concrete wall we could hide behind. About 20 feet from the trestle was the road which had a stop sign very close to us. We decided that the next car that stops at the sign gets it.
After a few minutes one came. We could see the lights, hear it slow down and when it came to a stop we all popped up and opened fire!
Police car...
Better a police car than this nutbag...
Deletehttp://nypost.com/2013/10/31/man-shoots-teen-toilet-papering-principals-house/
When I was about 7 my friend Brian, my brother and I were discussing possible costumes to wear that night. Brian's mom suggested that we all dressed as hobos. Brian said no because he was hobo the previous year and the older kids were calling him a hobosexual. Our moms laughed. I was too young to understand but watching our moms laugh I cracked up too.....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.laobserved.com/archive/2008/10/which_halloween_tableau_i.php
ReplyDeleteReally, no words...
Going to Phish Halloween show in Atlantic city tonight + it's a costume ball Planning on dropping a tab tonight haven't tripped in 20 + years so maybe I'll have an interesting Halloween tale to add tomorrow Happy Halloween All
ReplyDeletePeace
Wow, Trilby. That second one is pretty sick. I hope they lose their jobs.
ReplyDeleteNo, from what I read the store refused to take the display down. While I'm definitely NOT a fan of P.C. lockstep-thought, I have to say I was disheartened when a google search revealed that bad taste and insensitivity are in their usual abundance, in this case in the number of pregnant women saying they're dressing up as Sharon Tate on Halloween. But I thought this window display took the prize for callousness.
DeleteHi William, Phish is one of my favorite bands. I was just listening to the Junta and Picture of Nectar albums last weekend. Have fun and don't trip too hard.....
ReplyDeleteYikes. Free speech is one thing, but jeeez.. dressing up as a murder VICTIM on Halloween? Even a mannequin. Bad karma at the very least.
ReplyDeleteYeah, good way to put it, Suze. Bad karma, fer sure.
ReplyDeleteJust found a pic from a Halloween in the mid-to-late 80s of me dressed in a cheap wig and sparkly dress. Supposed to be a Harlow/Monroe thing - ended up looking like a cheap hooker or mob moll. In the photo, I'm looking verrry petulant (if not outright bitchy). Must've run out of tequila and/or coke at whatever party I was at. Tried to post the photo, but it wouldn't post.
Ok, changed my Blogger profile pic but previous posts still have old pic... see if scary Halloween pic posts this time. Aaaarrrggghhh, technology!!!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Trilby. Do you sing Happy Birthday Mr President?
ReplyDeleteHiya, Doc. Hope you've been feeling better.
DeleteNo, but I have been known, in partnership with Cuervo Gold, to sing the theme songs of every tv sitcom of the 60s and 70s. Unrequested. And unappreciated... o-O
http://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/mansoncover.jpg found this on the web..... Halloween ??? Have a scary night !!
ReplyDeletehttp://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/mansoncover.jpg
ReplyDeleteWilliam......Phish.
ReplyDeleteSaw Widespread Panic 10/27 Houston