OUTRAGEOUS STORIES

Prior to emigrating to Canada, I lived two years in London, England. I rented a two bedroom furnished basement flat on Primrose Hill, directly opposite Regent’s Park Zoo, which I shared with a German girl, Anneliese.

We could always tell when it was feeding time at the zoo. There was a cacophony of excited animal noises emanating from there: lions roaring, elephants trumpeting, monkeys shrieking etc. I never once went into the zoo, because quite frankly, I used to find the sight of wild animals being cooped up in cages very depressing. I think nowadays perhaps zoos are more sympathetic to their animals and try to create as natural an environment for them as possible, but back then they didn’t.

I think England is the only country in the world where you could travel as little as 30 miles and find people speaking with a different accent from the ones you just left behind 30 miles’ ago. Londoners speak with a Cockney accent, Yorkshire with a Yorkshire accent – it makes no difference where you go, their accents are all different. And some of them are hard to understand.

I remember stopping off at a pub in Somerset and ordering a rum and coke.

“Wiv voice?” the publican said politely.

“Huh?” I asked thoroughly confused.

“Wiv voice?” he repeated patiently. It was only after I’d gotten him to write it down that I was able to determine he was asking me whether or not I wanted ice in my drink! He got quite shirty with me over my lack of understanding what in the hell he was asking. In my defence, I couldn’t imagine ever having a rum and coke “viwout oice” which would explain why I had such a hard time comprehending the dear gentleman.

Although I speak with a British accent, (my parents were both Brits and that’s how we wpoke at home) to a Brit it sounds foreign, because I don’t have an accent which they could pinpoint as coming from a specific region in England. So inevitably I’d get asked “Erm … where are you from?” And when I said “Brazil” their reaction was always predictable – complete astonishment. “Why on earth would you leave a warm and lovely climate like Brazil’s to come to live here in wet and cold England?”

I mentioned this to Anneliese, and she said “How amazing! I get asked exactly the same thing – why on earth did I come to live in England!”

So we devised a competition strictly between the two of us.

We each invented an outrageous story explaining why we’d gone to live in England. The rules were: we were free to tell this story to a new friend, but it would have to be when both of us were present at the telling. Whoever managed to convince the new friend that our outrageous story was true, got a star.

Rule #2 was that neither of us would let the cat out of the bag or indicate in any way that it was a joke, while it was being told.

A chart was hung in our kitchen, and a supply of stick on stars was purchased from Woolworth’s and laid on the counter next to it.

I had not one, but two outrageous stories. One of them was so far fetched, that I insisted it merited two stars if it ever was believed (and it was, a few times). It was a hard sell involving great acting on my part.

“Do you have any family in Brazil then?”

This called for downcast eyes, woeful expression, a quiet sigh and if I could muster it, a silent tear.

“Well … I used to have … a grandfather,” brave smile. “Wonderful man … he was a missionary who used to putter up and down the Amazon River converting the Brazilian native Indians.” (So far this was all perfectly true.)

“You say ‘was?’ Is he still alive?”

Gulp, head averted. “No…” allowing a silence to ensue.

“Oh I’m sorry, what happened to him?”

“He was ….” lips compressed tightly… “He was EATEN BY A BOA CONSTRICTOR!”

“Oh no! I am sooo sorry. How did they ever find out that this had happened to him?”

I was, if nothing else, inventive. “They later happened to kill the boa and found … (sob) GRANDPA’S WALLET IN ITS STOMACH.”

Mind you the fact of the matter is, a boa has a cast iron stomach that digests anything and everything it consumes – which would’ve included dear old Grandpa’s wallet. (Note: Grandpa died in his own bed at the ripe old age of 88, of old age.)

As I mentioned before, this story was a hard one to pull off, but it earned me a couple of stars a few times.

My #2 story was far more plausible and I had great success with it.

Question:

“Why on earth would you leave a warm and lovely climate like Brazil’s to come to live here in wet and cold England?”

A couple of awkward coughs, head turned aside, looking embarrassed.

“Well actually … erm … fact is … I HAD to leave Brazil.”

“My goodness, why?”

Big sigh “I had a Brazilian lover (note: at the time I was still as virginal as the day I was born), and one day … I caught him … IN BED …IN THE ARMS OF ANOTHER WOMAN … MAKING LOVE TO HER!” (This last bit was added on so that my listener would be in no doubt as to what was going on in that bed!)

“Really? Well what did you do? Kick him in the groin?”

“No,” I muttered, “Much worse than that.”

By this time, my listener’s eyes were wide open and I had his or her full attention.

“What did you do?”

“I … pause … pause some more … “I …. TABBED HIM WITH A PAIR OF SCISSORS!” I blurted out.

“MY GOD, DID YOU KILL HIM?”

“Nooo … but he lost one of his kidneys as a result.” (I figured he had two of those, so it was okay for my fictitious lover to lose one of them and still live to tell the tale.)

“Well were you charged? Did you spend time in prison?”

“No, he and his family never pressed charges. They knew he’d had no business cheating on me – THE RAT FINK BASTARD – and realized it was a crime of passion – they understand that kind of thing in Brazil. However, I had to agree to leave the country and … (sob) NEVER GO BACK THERE … AGAIN… EVER!”

Like I said before, I had quite a success rate with story #2 and told it to a new boyfriend when he brought me back to my flat after our evening out. I trotted out this story in our living room, with Anneliese right there, trying to smother a smile. He totally believed me – but alas, I forgot to tell him it wasn’t true before he pushed off.

I NEVER SAW HIM AGAIN!