Dwight and all,
I don't know if this is one of those..."you had to be there' stories of not, in order to appreciate this and to think it funny, but, let me explain what happened to us last week to try and keep the humor going..
Me, my 8 yo son, a friend and her two young boys were preparing for a International Culture Fair presentation last week. The boys chose the country of Saudi Arabia, so we got all of the info together, made a display board with info all aboout the country. We had alot of artifacts that I had brought back from when I lived over there, as well as the womens' outfit (total black body wrap that Anne got to wear and display for all to see, the eye's only are allowed to be seen on their women), we had the mens' head gear and grey long gown/dress that they wear; we were ready to present this country to everyone. Then I got a wild hair and asked my friend if she wanted to drive by the local Mosque to make sure that we knew where it was at; she agreed.
I drive into their parking lot and said, "hey, there's a car here, lets go in and talk with someone!" (Mind you, for some reason she is terrified of Muslim men!
). She also reminded me that she had on (what she calls) a WIFE BEATER shirt (a tank top)...I loaned her one of mine to put on over it. Well, I led the way up to the Mosque in hopes of finding someone to chat with and let the boys ask any questions or at least set up a time to do so, so there are two buildings divided by a breezeway and we go into one and it was a fellowship hall with little classrooms along the walls. I call out and noone is there, so we are in the entrance way ready to leave and the alarm goes off loudly...my friend and her kids and Daniel all take off and run for their lives to my truck; as I just stand there and call out to them sayinhg..."hey, you guys all get back here...where are ya going???". So now we go to the second bldg and we see an old man just sitting in the foyer to the sactuary just reading a book, and we tell him of the little problem that we had just caused with the alarm; so he invites us to come into the foyer and to sit down on the two benches that were sitting across from each other while he goes to the office and makes a call to get someone to come and turn off the alarm...he actually apologised for not hearing it
.
So the boys all sit together nicely on the one bench and me and friend sit on the other bench across the foyer and wait for the elderly man to come back from phoning the SHEIK (but with his Arabic accent, the old man said 'I will be right back after I call the SHAKE'... instead of pronouncing him as the SHEIK. Well, we are sitting quietly in the foyer and I tell the boys,... "...Now, whatever you do in your final Saudi presentation say 'SHEIK' and do not say 'SHAKE' AND BAKE"! (I don't know what posesed me to say that, but, I guess I was just trying to give them an example of the word 'Shake' in a sentence...and how the boys weren't to say SHAKE...) well, my friend started laughing outloud so hard that she got us and the boys to laughing hysterically!!! She couldn't even look at me; the more that I tried to get them to stop laughing the harder they would laugh and we were tearing up so badley that our makeup was running; and our noses were running, and we were trying so hard to not laugh so loud that we literally had to cover our mouths (with both hands ) in a very serious way in order for the sounds of hilarity to not be resounding throughout the very quiet sanctuary to where it could be heard by the old man to where he might take it as us being disrespectful; (I really do not know if he was just deaf or if God deafened his ears for a moment, b/c he seemed to not have noticed anything at all.) We were holding our our stomaches and trying not to snort out loud, and there were many attempts by me to be seriously show them how to make sure that they make a straight face when the man comes back in, but, to no avail...it only worsened the laughter; they got me to laughing even harder; she alomost peed her pants as she was begging me to stop saying anything else and not to look at her; we barely able to catch our breath... she had me HONKING-(which I hate to do b/c it sounds ugly to me, it embarasses me) (for real.)
Then the guy came back and we all had to stop and freeze the laughter...ALL OF THEM turned off their laughter immediately... but, I couldn't stop laughing even after the man asked me a question, so I tried to swallow my laughs, and I tried to make it look as though I had a very serious and concerned look on my face, you know, with the eyebrows lifted up, but the first couple of words came out of my mouth not as SPEAKING the words, but as LAUGHING the words to the man but, finally I was able to get ahold of my composure and speak normally with him for about 30 seconds; just long enough to get out of there....We hurried to leave while we still had our respect intact. Of course, we lost it outside and my friend told us on the drive home... 'that will be a funny memory to last in infamy'.. she said.
As I said, you might have had to be there to get the SHEIK VERSUS SHAKE (and bake) scenario
PS-I set up an appt, to take Daniel to see the SHEIK so that we could talk and to see if he would loan me a koran. Mohomed (the Sheik) met with us and he had a couple of his people there with him...well they were so glad that we were doing this presentation that he gave Daniel a present...a brand new childs' sized white religious gown to keep; plus he gave me a brand new Koran that is written in both Arabic and English on each page! (Needless to say, that my friend and her boys did not want to come and meet the SHEIK!) but, the presentation was pulled off just fine!
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Topic: Double-pane windows (Read 13886 times)