Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once, and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.
My words are:
wickedness ~ hunter ~ electricity ~ inadequate ~ purchased
They were submitted by Someone Else's Genius - thank you, Robin!
When I was summarizing my San Diego adventures in last week's post, I regretted that I had to keep it short. So many anecdotes to tell...wickedness ~ hunter ~ electricity ~ inadequate ~ purchased
They were submitted by Someone Else's Genius - thank you, Robin!
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| Scripps Park, La Jolla |
Also I thought it was a pity that I didn't have any digital pictures to illustrate my story. In the meantime I climbed up to the attic and found some prints that I scanned and included as a slide show at the end of this post. It's more for myself than anything else, but maybe you'll enjoy them, too.
Let's get to today's prompt!
Looking at the words I've got to use, it's obvious that I'm going to have to start by telling you about my experience at the DMV.
I had called ahead and asked how to apply for a California diver's license, and they told me to just come by during opening hours, there were no appointments - just wait in line.
So that's what I did. I had no idea what was expecting me. When it was my turn, I had to show my passport, fill in a form, pay some money and have my picture and finger prints taken. Then I was told to go and wait in another line.
It was a hell of a line, and there was no A/C, very unusual. Maybe it needed too much power and caused the grid to shut down? There were electricity outages occurring for several hours at a time once or twice a week.
I did what I usually did when I was going places alone - which was most of the time: people watching.
In Switzerland all the people kind of look unremarkable and average. No matter if they are Swiss, German, French, or Italian, they are all European = caucasian and dressed more or like the same. Except the ladies from muslim countries who set themselves apart by their long sleeves, dresses and headscarves - never mind the temperatures. They usually walk a couple of steps behind their husbands who wear T-Shirts, shorts and flip-flops. That's a whole other story though, and I probably lack insight to comment on it anyway.
Back to America. You can see pretty much everything! Short sleeves, very short sleeves, no sleeves, baseball cap, basketball hat, shades worn indoors, designer purse, backpack, brown bag, plastic bag...
Very young people, very old people - at least that's what some looked like, were they still allowed to actually drive?
Some were reading the leaflet that everybody got, along with the receipt. I figured it was the DMV's PR brochure of some sort, I didn't pay attention. Others used it to fan themselves some cool-ish air. Good thinking!
Sticky, smelly, warm air made the wait almost unbearable.
I wished I had purchased a bottle of water on my way down here. Better yet, a Diet Coke. No Coke Zero back then!
Finally it was my turn. A clerk showed me to a booth and handed me a bunch of papers.
Körkort, Teoriprov, Först Avsnitt, Allmänna Trafikregler
That's what the title of the 4 pages long document said.
"Huh? Excuse me, please, what is that?"
"Your theory test. Multiple choice, you've got 20 minutes. Good luck!"
What?
I was supposed to take the test here and now?
I was totally unprepared!
I expected to get a letter summoning me up for another day.
Plus this test was in Swedish!
"Don't worry, it isn't hard. Guess if you must. If you fail you can always come back, but then you'll have to stand in line and pay your fee again. So what's wrong with the language? Swedish, that's what it says here on your application. Oh, Swiss? Ain't that the same? So what language do you need?"
At the time I felt that my English skills were inadequate to take a test, so I asked for German.
Big mistake.
Somebody must have run the English original through Babelfish, and it took a lot of imagination to figure out what the questions, let alone the answers, might be.
I did really well on all the questions that included street signs and pictures,
but was at loss when prompted about getting in lane 150 or 200 feet prior to turning. (feet? I could roughly convert miles into km, but feet and yards?)
Or questions like "under what circumstance is a person of age 21 or older allowed to transport an opened bottle of alcohol?"
Never?
When I told Hunter about it, he laughed so hard and told me that in fact the trunk was the correct answer, and that I was supposed to study the leaflet they gave me! It contained all the traffic rules and possible test questions! Hunter was a guy with whom I had lunch at local Chinese and Thai places from time to time. Until he casually mentioned that his wife hated Asian food.
I'm done with my words, but for the sake of entertainment, let me tell you about other dates I had.
I'll skip the one with #WhatWasHisName? It was boring.
Jason was one of my roommates, along with Carolina from Spain, Green Card Winner, and Rob, Surfer Dude who worked nights at the Casino.
When Jason's friends threw a party or went out for sushi, he'd invite me.
On August 1st, Swiss National Holiday, I wanted to go to Forever Fondue for dinner, (looks like they closed in the meantime) and he wasn't too eager about having melted cheese on a 100°F day, but he tagged along. He was good to talk to, and even though we were just friends, it was probably the best night out.
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| Some called me "Swiss Miss" |
One glorious blue skies sunny morning I went for breakfast with Josh.
Kidding.
In summer, every day in San Diego is a glorious blue skies sunny morning!
Uh, no, why?
"It's the bank with the closest freeway access and therefore target of frequent robberies."
"So are you planning on doing one later?"
"Maybe - you game?"
Hahahaha.
Instead he suggested we'd spend the day at Safari Park, back then it was called Wild Animal Park. It was fabulous. We got to see elephants, zebras, lions, hippos, gazelles, even a chimp, can you spot it, up on the palm tree?
We got along well and had fun. He was nice to kids we met, and he thought ice cream without sprinkles was only half the fun. So far so good.
Then he got a call on his mobile phone.
Nope, not his work. I think he was between jobs.
Not his girlfriend / wife either. I was gonna find out why he didn't have one in just a minute.
It was his mother! Obviously she knew about our date and wanted to know how things were going. He went ahead and told her what pancakes I liked, that I had a little stuffed Tweety as my key tag, how cute my smile and my everything was, and that he thought things were actually going very well.
She told him she wanted to meet me, so could he please bring me home for dinner?
Needless to say things went south from there. I got a terrible headache - no lame excuse! As I had assumed that we'd meet for breakfast, not spend the day in the sweltering African heat, I didn't bring a hat! Also I had a sudden onset of mama's boy allergy.
In case you noticed, I had a hard time fitting in one of the words. So I just put it in the title ;-) Works for me!
Happy Friday 13th and a wonderful weekend to you!
Now go find out what my friends' words were, and what they did with them:
Spatulas on Parade
Stacy Sews and Schools
The Bergham Chronicles
Battered Hope
Eileen’s Perpetually Busy
Someone Else's Genius
Confessions of a part time working mom
Southern Belle Charm
Searching for Sanity
Sparkly Poetic Weirdo
Climaxed
Evil Joy Speak
PS: I promised to share my pictures. There you go, enjoy!
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