Not Lost, But Laced, in Translation

This poor man walked into the bike shop this evening to ask about the "bike theft situation" in NYC, since he was recently arrived from London and was concerned about it. And I'm afraid I laughed.

But not so much at his question as at his accent. And not the way that sounds - all cruel and middle-schoolish. I laughed because the last time I'd heard those vowels and inflections and that particular lilt, it had been coming out of the mouth of the man I was sleeping with at the time, and it was saying very specific, very sexual things to me.

And I'd had trouble keeping a straight face then. I mean, it was sexy, too. It was just weird, the way he sounded as if he were asking me if I'd like more sugar in my tea, when what he was actually asking me was, shall we say, rather different.

I couldn't decide whether to be turned on or fall off the bed laughing. In the end, I think I held my breath to keep a straight face, and said something clever like, "Yes, 'more sugar' would be lovely."

Tonight, though, the whole scene came flooding back to me and I burst out laughing.

The Brit in the shop tonight (who looked nothing like the other Brit) must have thought I was ridiculing him, or perhaps that all NYC girls are insane, or something equally unfortunate.

It didn't even occur to me to try to explain - all I could do was remove myself from the situation. So I stumbled out of the shop, calling goodbye over my shoulder. And proceeded to laugh hysterically for about the next seven miles.

Later, watching a science show (geek!) on TV, I learned that Russian space missions used to be (or still are) equipped with a sawed-off shotgun. Just in case. I had this image of a Russian mission control director deciding what type of firearm to put aboard, and thinking, "Hmmn. We can just use this." It seemed so typically Russian, and hilarious.

It wasn't just the fact that they'd equip people going to live in cramped quarters in space for months or years at a time (some of these missions were for space stations) with firearms, but also the choice of firearm that struck me as funny.

Sawed-off shotgun, in my mind, is the weapon of choice for women with abusive husbands, farmers defending their land, characters in blues songs, and her.

I don't know if such cultural differences make any real difference, if you follow my meaning. I sometimes feel that I have more in common with or understand better people whose lives have gone extremely differently than mine. I wonder if there are deeper ingredients that are similar - not just in who we are as people, but in the experiences themselves. There's something, for example, in my own experience that I think translates into being at war in someone else's experience. I'm not sure of the exact ingredient, but I can feel it.

Watching Band of Brothers, for example, makes me feel weirdly at home in some way.

And there's also the fact that humans are human everywhere, but we find different ways of dealing with the basic realities of life: food, shelter, interaction, conflict, love.
I treasure the parallels, but the differences are icing on the cake, somehow. Piquant.

"I don't speak Fahrenheit," he said to me the other day. Yeah, and even though I agree that the metric system is a far superior method, I look at those Celsius temps and can't make them make sense to myself. On the other hand, I swear I am learning Spanish by osmosis.