We’ve had our Belgian Fleegan for over two weeks. She met my parents last week. It went a little something, no, it went EXACTLY like this. She and I went over for dinner to mom’n’dad’s. Dad barely spoke and mom was all, “HI. MY. NAME. IS. LAURA.”
Dad and I laughed at mom.

Eventually we were talking about how French words sound so pretty and fancy.

“Like, abattoir,” I said.

“Ooh,” said mom, “what’s that?”

“slaughterhouse.”

So we go back and forth butchering French words we’ve heard from the Pink Panther movies, with Aubergine (I have no clever nickname for our sweet Belgian girl, so I’m going with this French word that Mr. Fleegan and I love to say.) looking at us as though we are insane, which, debatable.

Ma says a few words. I say a few words.

So Aubergine would say something and ma would have this look on her face like, “What did she just say?” and so I’d pronounce whatever it was in an overly American fashion, you know, for the comedy. We were eating corn and I asked her what corn was in French and she said maiz, and I was like, of COURSE it is, everywhere in the world calls it some form of maize and we call it CORN.

Then Ma starts asking Aubergine about her hometown and the Belgian government.

“We have a king.”

“A KING? WHAT’S THE KING’S NAME?”

“Laurent.” Which sounds like Laurahn.

“WHAT?”

“Laurent.”

“Ma, she’s saying Laurent. LOR-ent.”

“Oh. Does your town have a mayor?”

“Yes, but it’s bourgmestre.”

“It’s wha?”

“Ma, it’s like, burgermeister.”

Then dad, who hasn’t spoken at all says, “We have a hamburglar too.”

“Dad!”

“Rabble, rabble, rabble.”

That’s just a typical dinner at the Pickle House.

 

 

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