A Daily Thing

When I’ve had little sleep and an inverse amount of coffee, it does something to my head.  Something delightful: it makes me remember hilarious things.

So today, I attempted to negotiate fits of laughter while trying to drive my car, and if I could help it still look dignified.  The culprit is a memory taking me back 18 years ago (crikey!).

My family and I lived in Australia for about a year when I was 12.  Being in a smallish Queensland town, we were the only French people there and the French teacher at our local high school thought she would take advantage of that.  How?  By asking my mother, brother and I to read out French words from children’s memory games into a tape recorder (to have good accurate pronunciation for various words on file, she explained).

One afternoon, we sat down and for a couple of hours we read words out in turn.  Except, my mother wasn’t happy with the quality of the audio, or the quality of our performance.  ’Louder children, we can’t hear anything you say when we play it back!’.  So my brother and I tried to oblige, but Maman was still not happy.  ’Here’ she said, ‘do it like this: LAAAAAMMMMBBBBBB CHHHOOOOPPPSSSSSS!!!!!’*.  Lamb chops: forever in my mind associated with my mother, screaming the words ridiculously loud.  And 18 years later, it still makes me laugh.

*If you are curious about what ‘lamb chops’ is in French, it is ‘côtelettes’.