Japanglish

It's my custom to walk out to the garage with May when she leaves for work in the morning. Usually, we're talking and the conversation just continues until she gets in the car and drives off. The garage is lower than the kitchen, so there's a small landing with a few steps down. Most mornings I'm there waving goodbye while she backs out, something I guess I picked up from my in-laws in Japan. This morning as sometimes happens, she remembered she forgot something. "Can you run in and get me my sneakers?" she asked as she opened the passenger side door to stow her handbag and laptop. She wore slacks and sandals, though there was still the white dust of a morning frost scattered over the ground.

"Which sneakers?" I asked, heading back in under the assumtion the shoes she wanted would likely be in the shoe & slipper cubby, just inside the kitchen door.

"They're in the pantry," she called out.

I opened the door to the kitchen pantry wondering why the hell she left her shoes in there. It's not big, not much floor space. I looked around and checked behind the door... no sign of sneakers. Then, right in front of me on the cluttered countertop, I spotted a bag of mini Snickers bars lying on top of a box of goodies. The bells went off.

I grabbed the candy, went back and handed the package to her, leaning over railing. "Tennis shoes are often called sneakers," I tried to explain, "I thought you said sneakers, not Snickers."

That's what I said," she insisted, "Sneakers, not tennis shoes."

The other day, May called home after leaving the office. It was a bad connection, and she sounded in a panic. "I almost hit the ship," she said. There's no waterfront between Westford and Carlisle. I had to think for a minute. "You mean someone towing a boat?" I asked. "No," she said, "A ship... a ship... what should I do?" "Was anyone hurt?" "No. The ship was coming down the middle of the road, so I stopped."

"I'm confused about the ship," I said, "What kind of ship again?"

"The kind of ship Mary had."

I tried to remember the Japanese version of the nursery rhyme. "Do you mean, 'hitsuji'?"

"Yes... that kind of ship."

A sheep.

Even a routine ovine runaway incident can be more fun in an inter-cultural family.