Oops!
Before I tell you what happened to me today, let me explain to you a couple of things. . .
The first one is that in Spanish when you say "a couple of things", it doesn't mean two things only, but more like a handful of things; a number between two and perhaps three, four or five.
The second thing is that I got an invitation from my sister's family in law to spend Thanks Giving with them, and I accepted. My sister's mother in law [SMIL] called me a couple days ago to invite me to her place, and when I asked her what time would be all right for me to show up, she said "around two". Then this morning my sister's sister in law [SSIL] called me and told me not to come at 7 PM as my SMIL had said, but earlier, at 4 PM. I was like WTF? First it was 2 PM, and now instead of 7PM, it was 4 PM? I didn't mention anything to her about the difference in time but told her that "I'll be there".
And the third thing I would like to explain, is that time and punctuality works different in Latin America than it does in the US. Clocks down there have twelve hours and the day also has twenty fours hours; even more so, a minute has sixty seconds as well as it does here in the US. But when you say down there "I'll see you at two o'clock", it doesn't mean 2:00 PM but more like "I'll see you around 2 PM". In other words, people down there are annoyingly unpunctual and for them to be ten minutes late is to be actually on time as hell [There's a handful of things that piss me off in this life and one of them is people that just cannot be on fucking time. If I say I see you at 3:30, I'd be waiting for you at 3:28 and I'd start losing my patience and turning all 16,000 possible shades of red for every second that I have to wait. But just for the record, I'm a nice guy].
And besides having a very bad night last night, this morning I had to drive all the way to the border with South Carolina to do something that I'd forgotten to do; see someone that I didn't want to see. . . a different story. Let me just say that while I was down there, I went out of my way about three miles to buy a lottery ticket and when I came back home I was tired and in a bad mode. It was already two in the afternoon and I really needed to take a nap, so I decided I was gona be fashionable late for the Thanksgiving dinner, and that I was gona show up at around five.
Ooops. . .
You see, my SMIL is married to an American and all his family was coming down here for Thanksgiving [he has two daughters who are married and each has three children]. When I decided to show up at 5 PM, I thought it was South American time, when once you show up you'll have a drink and there'll be a lot of talking and then at around maybe six or seven, the food will be served and there'll be more drinking followed by dessert and some coffee, plus a lot more talking. But as there was such discrepancy between arrival times, I thought that if I was gona make it at four o'clock I would end up having to go and chase the turkey for dinner; and I really needed that extra hour of napping to be honest with you, therefore my rationality on the arrival time.
Well guess what: they ate at fucking 4:00 PM because it was American time!!!!! How in the fucking world am I suppose to know this?! I was fashionable late on top of my fashionable late time, crossing the front door at around 5:25 PM, only to discover that they've already eaten. When I walked in, my SSIL and my SMIL came to ask me that what had happened, and that why I was "late", could you believe those two? Even more so they were on the phone with my sister at that very same time and before I could even say hello to everybody they handed me the phone and my sister was like "why the fuck are you late?". My answer was as sincere as possible when I told her that she was already married so that she didn't have anything to worry about. She must've said something but I handed back the phone and started shaking hands and smiling while at the same time piling up food in a plate. Being "late" doesn't mean that I was not hungry, but the opposite as a matter of fact and they all got to see what a hungry Latino can eat [a loooooooooot].
But at the end it wasn't a big deal, or at least it wasn't for me. And if it was for them, at the end of the night after they've got to interact with my super-cool self, hear a couple of my stories, and see first hand my insatiable appetite, I can assure that they'd forgotten that I got late. Well, American late because as far as I'm concern I was on time as hell!
The first one is that in Spanish when you say "a couple of things", it doesn't mean two things only, but more like a handful of things; a number between two and perhaps three, four or five.
The second thing is that I got an invitation from my sister's family in law to spend Thanks Giving with them, and I accepted. My sister's mother in law [SMIL] called me a couple days ago to invite me to her place, and when I asked her what time would be all right for me to show up, she said "around two". Then this morning my sister's sister in law [SSIL] called me and told me not to come at 7 PM as my SMIL had said, but earlier, at 4 PM. I was like WTF? First it was 2 PM, and now instead of 7PM, it was 4 PM? I didn't mention anything to her about the difference in time but told her that "I'll be there".And the third thing I would like to explain, is that time and punctuality works different in Latin America than it does in the US. Clocks down there have twelve hours and the day also has twenty fours hours; even more so, a minute has sixty seconds as well as it does here in the US. But when you say down there "I'll see you at two o'clock", it doesn't mean 2:00 PM but more like "I'll see you around 2 PM". In other words, people down there are annoyingly unpunctual and for them to be ten minutes late is to be actually on time as hell [There's a handful of things that piss me off in this life and one of them is people that just cannot be on fucking time. If I say I see you at 3:30, I'd be waiting for you at 3:28 and I'd start losing my patience and turning all 16,000 possible shades of red for every second that I have to wait. But just for the record, I'm a nice guy].
And besides having a very bad night last night, this morning I had to drive all the way to the border with South Carolina to do something that I'd forgotten to do; see someone that I didn't want to see. . . a different story. Let me just say that while I was down there, I went out of my way about three miles to buy a lottery ticket and when I came back home I was tired and in a bad mode. It was already two in the afternoon and I really needed to take a nap, so I decided I was gona be fashionable late for the Thanksgiving dinner, and that I was gona show up at around five.
Ooops. . .
You see, my SMIL is married to an American and all his family was coming down here for Thanksgiving [he has two daughters who are married and each has three children]. When I decided to show up at 5 PM, I thought it was South American time, when once you show up you'll have a drink and there'll be a lot of talking and then at around maybe six or seven, the food will be served and there'll be more drinking followed by dessert and some coffee, plus a lot more talking. But as there was such discrepancy between arrival times, I thought that if I was gona make it at four o'clock I would end up having to go and chase the turkey for dinner; and I really needed that extra hour of napping to be honest with you, therefore my rationality on the arrival time.
Well guess what: they ate at fucking 4:00 PM because it was American time!!!!! How in the fucking world am I suppose to know this?! I was fashionable late on top of my fashionable late time, crossing the front door at around 5:25 PM, only to discover that they've already eaten. When I walked in, my SSIL and my SMIL came to ask me that what had happened, and that why I was "late", could you believe those two? Even more so they were on the phone with my sister at that very same time and before I could even say hello to everybody they handed me the phone and my sister was like "why the fuck are you late?". My answer was as sincere as possible when I told her that she was already married so that she didn't have anything to worry about. She must've said something but I handed back the phone and started shaking hands and smiling while at the same time piling up food in a plate. Being "late" doesn't mean that I was not hungry, but the opposite as a matter of fact and they all got to see what a hungry Latino can eat [a loooooooooot].
But at the end it wasn't a big deal, or at least it wasn't for me. And if it was for them, at the end of the night after they've got to interact with my super-cool self, hear a couple of my stories, and see first hand my insatiable appetite, I can assure that they'd forgotten that I got late. Well, American late because as far as I'm concern I was on time as hell!
Jean-Francois was drunk at 9:28 PM
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