The Joys of Marrying a Foreigner

Women are notoriously difficult to understand. The problem is only exacerbated when your woman doesn’t speak your language very well or, as in our case, barely speaks it at all.

In the early days of our relationship, the woman who eventually became Mrs. Hornibastard decided to cook some dinner for me. Peering at me from the kitchen doorway she asked, “Do you want mate lofe?”

I was not quite clear what she was offering but it sounded appealing and, since she was wearing a whole lot of not much, I was hopeful that I had heard her correctly.

I asked her several times what she was offering and each time she replied, “Mate lofe.”

I’m always in the mood for mate lofe especially with a hot Asian chick so I readily agreed.

She disappeared back into the kitchen only to emerge about 90 minutes later with some delicious “meat loaf.”

She threatened to feed me some “mutant soup” one night. I finally gave in and agreed to eat her “mutant soup” and was eventually served up some fantastic “mutton soup.”

Not long after the mutant soup episode, she was rifling through my CD collection and asked, “Do you have Rectal?”

I explained that I’d never heard of a band called “Rectal.”

“It’s not a band. It’s the name of a song,” she replied.

“Who is it by?”

“Aerosmith.”

“I think I have all the Aerosmith recordings, but I don’t recall anything named “Rectal.”

“Oh come on! It’s one of their biggest hits!”

My mind raced through the list of Aerosmith hit tunes. Finally I asked, ”Do you mean “Rag Doll?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying! Rectal! What’s wrong with your ears?”

Now, many years later, she still keeps my and our 11-year old twins in stitches. On a recent visit to Fort Worth, as we were driving around looking for a place to eat she suddenly asked, “Why don’t we eat at Cat Lemons?”

The rest of us replied in unison, “Cat Lemons? What kind of restaurant is that?”

Mrs. Hornibastard pointed dead ahead, exasperated that no one in her family could read the enormous billboard ahead of us.

tuscl.net

We still refer to that place as “Cat Lemons.”