Lost in Translation

I admit it. It's me. Moi. Can't blame it on southern accents--happened waaay before moving to NC. Can't blame it on a minor concussion--happened waaay before that too. Can't even blame it on my hearing---started happening fairly young before I was listening to music at ear-splitting decibels, but hey, Led Zepplin is not meant to be played softly.

What am I talking about? I have a few talents, none of which are appropriate for either listing on a resume' or would win me a major amount of money on a reality TV show (at least not yet). One of these talents it seems is hearing something someone says and making something entirely different out of it. I finally decided to publicly admit this after what happened at work one night.

I was sitting at the nurse's station doing my documentation on the computer and the secretary, Nancy, was talking to some others at the desk. I kept hearing the word 'annihilator' being thrown around which I thought was odd, but I was trying to get my work done so I didn't pay a whole lot of attention. Eventually Nancy approached me and asked me if I would like an 'annihilator.' Of course I asked "What the hoo-haw is an annihilator?" Well, she extends her hand and there is a small purple square in it, with a piece of candy better know as a "Now and Later." Okey dokey.

Still not convinced I have a problem? May I present Exhibit B, better known as Mr. P., my chemistry instructor at WCC. Good old Mr. P. was from Nigeria, and had not been in the US of A very long so had a pretty thick accent. I was working full time at the hospital doing transcription at the time and taking my prereqs for nursing school part time. When the class started, more than a few of the students started complaining amongst themselves that Mr. P. was hard to understand because of his accent. Not me. As a matter of fact, I proclaimed that because I typed for quite a few foreign doctors at the hospital, I understood him quite well (or so I thought).

Well, Mr. P. was studying for his PhD and had never taught before, which made for a difficult time for us students, as he had a proclivity for teaching above our heads, forgetting that this was a beginning chemistry class. He would start out at the beginning of a problem but then assume that we knew all the steps inbetween and skip right to the end, leaving us all scratching our heads wondering how he got there. In the process of doing this, he would put these problems up on the board, and at the end he would turn and look at the class and say: "Huh! Exactly!!!" I thought to myself, how arrogant you are to say that when we don't have a clue how you got there! Well, this went on for about three or four weeks with the majority of the class spending quite a bit of time outside of class getting help to understand what he was doing. One morning I was sitting there again, he was putting yet another problem on the board, but this time when he turned around and looked at us and said "Huh! Exactly!!!" it became very clear to me that this was NOT was he was saying.

He was saying: "Huh? Is that clear?" I had to laugh and I had to laugh right then and there but being in the front row I couldn't make noise so I just sat there and shook so then he asked me if I was okay and all I could do was nod my head yes. One of my friends said it looked like I was having a grand mal minus the tongue biting and incontinence.

Okay, so that has been within the past few years, so I will give you Exhibit C, which happened when I was in high school. It was the first time I spent the night with my best friend Sharon at her house. We had quite a few plans for the next day and were discussing them as we were getting ready to go to bed. Sharon's bedroom was downstairs in a converted basement room, so there were no windows--completely dark with the lights out. She had two twin beds in her room and when she told me which one to take, she warned me about it--the box spring was ever so slightly smaller in size than the frame so there were wooden slats underneath it to keep it from falling through the frame. I wasn't so sure about this arrangement and wanted to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag, but she assured me plenty of other people had slept on it and had been fine so I agreed. So we went to bed, turned out the lights and were lying there talking about what we were going to do the next day--shopping, movie, etc. She asked me if I would like to go to Burger King for lunch and I said okay.  There was a brief moment of quiet and then she asked me this strange question: "Have you ever had a robber?" Huh? So I answered, "No, but I've dreamt about them coming in through the windows at night."

Sharon started howling with laughter and I was completely mystified. I really didn't see anything funny about breaking and entering, especially when you're at home. Once she finally calmed down enough to talk, she told me that's not what she asked me.......she asked me......"Have you ever had a Whopper?" (Lunch at Burger King, duh!) Getting the crazy visuals I get and her laughing hysterically already, of course I completely lost it. To this day I can get a pretty good picture of a giant hamburger oozing over my windowsill and if I think about it long enough I'll start laughing again. Want to guess what happened next? I was thrashing around in the bed laughing my butt off and those nice little slats underneath the box spring became dislodged. Box spring shoots down through the frame, followed by mattress, followed by me, all in the pitch dark. Laughing turned to screaming followed by laughing again. All of this at about oh, 12:30 a.m. and of course the racket woke up the whole house. For some reason it was quite a while before I was invited to spend the night again.

So this is my dysfunction/syndrome. Anybody have a good name for it? Please make it one I can understand when it is said.