Monday, January 25, 2010

Honesty may or not be the best policy

You can always trust an Israeli to tell you exactly what they are thinking. As Americans, we think awful things about people, we say awful things about people (behind their back, of course), but we would never ever say exactly what we thought, right when we thought it, and right to the person's face who we thought it about. We think that would be rude.

But other people, thank heaven, are different from Americans. Other people like my Israeli friends Dina and Eli, an older couple who run a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix. We've been good friends for a few years now. I've even cleaned their house in exchange for humus and pita.

Today I went in to share the news of my engagement. I walk in am greeted by Eli who forgoes "hello"entirely and expressionlessly says "You lost some weight."

"Yeah, I lost a little weight. So anyways (flash ring), I'm engaged!"

"You lost weight," Eli repeats in accented English.

By this time, Dina had come out from the kitchen, takes one look at me and says, "You lost weight. And in all the wrong places too."

She then told me that I need to eat more machacha so I can get my chi-chi's back.

7 comments:

heather said...

Is that the secret? Machacha?

(What is that exactly?)

Sheryl said...

man that was the best story! yes! hahahaha!

The Standrings said...

no way. hilarious.

Vanessa said...

Just get a padded bra.

Erin Gibbons said...

What a funny story! Thanks for the link to your blog, I love what you wrote about your fiance, I'm so glad you're so happy! He looks, and seems, like an awesome person, and I'm so glad you found each other! Marriage is great!

Marjolein said...

That's funny!

When I just got back from the US I absolutely hated (yes, hated) the Dutch people. Why? Because we are SO RUDE if you compare us to Americans. I prefer the Americans, who aren't always honest in what they think, but they are nice and kind! I still miss that!

Nicki said...

Erin. This post is so glorious.