one shitty story

ok i’m lazy. it takes time and effort to update this blog. the logical conclusion is that i don’t update this blog.

but every once in a while comes along a story that i simply must share with the world. if you know me, you know that i moved from russia to the u.s. when i was 10 years old. most people that meet me can’t really imagine that at one time in my life i was laughed at by my ESL teacher for calling a toe a “finger,” or that i stole one poor kid’s toy, because i thought he was giving me a gift, only to realize later that he was just telling me what the thing was called, or that i ran around the soccer field for a half an hour during gym class, because i thought we were supposed to run as far as we could, when in reality we were just running a mile. today, my english is probably better than that of most native speakers. i have very little, if any accent and i am that jackass, who interrupts people just to point out their grammar mistakes.

one way to find out that i am, in fact, foreign, is to come over to my house. because there you will be confronted with these people:

Exhibit 1: my dad

Most Russian thing he has ever done: ordered a heater from somewhere in scandinavia as the final piece to the sauna that he built with his own hands in the basement of our house.

Language problems: too many to list, but once, while at a company dinner, his poor command of the english language caused him to order a whiskey mixed with gin from a very surprised waiter at the restaurant. that isn’t actually what he wanted, but i guess the details got lost in translation.

Exhibit 2: my grandma

Most Russian thing she has ever done: everything my grandmother does is russian. if you looked up the work “babushka” in a russian-english dictionary you will see her picture.

Language problems: none, at least if you ask her. she speaks absolutely no english, and i’m pretty sure she isn’t delusional, but she finds nothing wrong with striking up a conversation in russian with just our very american neighbor, a stranger at costco, or simply trying to explain herself to american customs agents at the airport, where she was detained for several hours for essentially trying to smuggle the seeds from her latest (very successful) harvest of cucumbers into the u.s.

Exhibit 3 (and the subject of the following story): my mom

most russian thing she has ever done: back in russia, my mom would buy these calendars that had traditional russian remedies for all sorts of illnesses. 365 days=365 remedies, and she had more than one of these. to this day you will find strange herbs in the cabinets of our kitchen. once, when i was a kid i got some warts, and my mom managed to cure them with an obscure ritual involving potatoes and what i to this day believe was fucking witchcraft.

Language problems: i think the following story tops all previous blunders. and here it goes…

i created a Skype account for my mom before leaving for germany, so that i could talk to her for free while abroad. everything was going well. i’m online a lot, so it really isn’t difficult to reach me. my mom would call me a couple of times a week to check up, and i would report back that everything was great and that was that. then my mom discovered the chat function of skype. so when i wasn’t actually at my computer, she started leaving messages in the chat window.

now, spelling is my mom’s weakest point, so i wasn’t surprised to read these, and i could translate them pretty easily. for example:

Luda Dokshina: i just wack up = i just woke up
Luda Dokshina: i want tack = i want to talk
Luda Dokshina: why you not ansver? pick ap the phone please = why don’t you answer? pick up the phone please.

that was fine, but then i come home to find this on my skype chat:

Luda Dokshina: Hi, Fedor, I didn’t ask you about sice a bed. I wont send shits. send for me massage. Thank you

then a minute later: Sorry! message with “E”

i will give you a second to appreciate the awesomeness of this message.
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okay, now let’s take a look at what the message actually should have read:

Luda Dokshina: Hi, Fedor, I didn’t ask you about the size of the bed. I won’t send the sheets, send me a message. Thank you.

the best part of it was that she very nonchalantly informed me that she will not, in fact, be sending “shits,” and went on to emphatically correct the misspelling of the word “message.”

the backstory to all this, is that my mom was making a package for me, and one of the things she was going to send was sheets for my new bed.

now, i had a good laugh about the message, but because my mom was not online, i didn’t have the opportunity to correct her spelling. good thing i didn’t, because the following day i get this message:

Luda Dokshina: I sent for your cloths and shits today morning It’ll in Germany after 10 days

Translation: I sent your clothes and sheets this morning. They should be in Germany within 10 days.

ok, by this point it’s getting old and i’m feeling kind of bad for laughing again, but just then i get another message from mom and i’m back rolling on the floor.

Luda Dokshina: I hope this chats with you help me in my spelling.Yesterday I sent box of sh… for you,because of my spelling. I put word sh… on list of items what I have in box.Post office lady ask me do I have any liquid in the box? I told her here just sheets(my pronunciation was correct, I worked with it) and lady told me Oh, is it what you mean?(She all ready read my list). My fill bad with English, but fill little bit better with thing how many people I make laught. Sorry, Fedor!

not many would have such a positive outlook on something that could have been pretty embarrasing. for that i really admire my mom and i know she wouldn’t mind me posting this, because maybe it’ll make some more people “laught.”

so i finally get a hold of mom on the phone. apparently she went to the post office with my package. when filing for insurance, she wrote “shits” among other things. now, imagine yourself as the post office worker and a 50-something year old woman tells you that there is “shit” in the box. you have two ways to interpret that information.
the first: “wtf? i ask a serious question about the contents of a package, and this lady says “oh, just some shit.”

or the second, apparently taken by the actual worker: try to keep a straight face and say, “mam, is there any liquid in the box?”

finally today, i got my “shits” in the mail, and was thrilled to find this on the box

the “Detailed Description of Contents reads:” Shits, Clothes, candy.” just think of all of the people my mom made “laught” en route.

actually opening the box brought even more good surprises.

for example i was particularly excited to find these “Peeps” lollipop rings (lollipeeps for short) in Marshmallow and Strawberry Cream flavors.

the other thing my mom sent me was a new memory card for the camera. so now i have more space to record videos. so i’ll work on that. maybe the next post will be a video of my new wohnung. don’t hold your breath though, this could take a while.

bis dann,

fedor