Have I ever mentioned to you that I sometimes am a blog stalker? One of the blogs I adore is that of this wonderful woman http://www.nicegirlnotes.com/
Check out this hilarious snippet of her writing (she is describing being new to America having immigrated from the Phillipinnes:
I walked onto the playground one crisp spring morning, ready for another day of third grade to begin. It was shaping up to be a banner day. I got new sneakers the weekend before, and traded out the plain white shoelaces for some wide purple ones with metallic silver threading. It was going to be a ‘very cool’ day.
Until these words escaped my mouth: “Oh yeah, before my family moved into our house, we lived in a condom.”
Right, condom. I know I meant condo. You know I meant condo. But I said condom. Why? Because I had just a conversation with my mom that went like this:
Me: What’s a condom? (I heard this word at school. Boys had said it, and there was a lot of giggling.)
Mom: Condom is short for condominium. It’s like a house, but in a building.
Me: Oh, okay. Like our old house.
Mom: Like our old house.
Except a condom isn’t a diminutive of “condominium.” It’s a barrier method of birth control, oft used in conjunction with spermicide, so says my high school Health teacher. Regardless of my super sweet shoelace accessories, I was greeted with bursts of laughter everywhere I went that day. In fact, my misconception wasn’t cleared up until a few years later.
Me (present day): What’s the word for “condom” in the Philippines?
Mom: Condom.
Me: ….
Me: ….
Mom: What?
Me: Forget it.
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