Sunday, May 20, 2007

Lost in Translation

My husband, Roger, had a particularly confusing interaction with one of the mothers at my son's school recently. It went like this:

School Mom: Your cat is dead.
Roger: We don't have a cat.
School Mom: Your cat is dead.
Roger: We don't have a cat.
School Mom: No. No. Your cat is dead!
Roger: I'm sorry, but we really don't have a cat.
School Mom (emphatically, slowly pronouncing every syllable): Your cat is dead. We wren out'a food yestrdy in 'e didn't git hat lunch.

It helps to know that said School Mom is originally from New Zealand. So here's the translation:

School Mom: You're Carter's dad. We ran out of food yesterday and he didn't get hot lunch.
Roger: Oh. Carter! I'm Carter's dad.! Right. We were wondering about that.

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