READ MORE BOOK!
Mom came over for dinner yesterday. (Mandarin in italics, English otherwise.)
Mom: (Between bites of pot roast and scrambled eggs with shrimp) I haven’t seen you for a while. Are you doing anything else besides working and staying at home?
Ernie: Not really. Oh wait, that’s not true at all. I was on a game show a month or two ago. I’ll be on television some time before February, hopefully.
Mom: (Not looking up) Oh. Which one?
Ernie: The Weakest Link. They have a version of that show in Taiwan, I think.
Mom: Mm. So, did you win or lose?
Now, this puts me in a quandary — while I told my mom the result of the game (c’mon now, she’s my mother) I’m still not allowed to discuss whether I won or lost publically until the episode airs on television. One of these snippets of conversation actually happened, but trust me, if the opposite had occured, the conversation would have gone the other way as well.
Scenerio 1: Ernie lost on the Weakest Link
Ernie: I didn’t win, Ma.
Mom: You didn’t win? Ernie, you should have read more books and magazines. READ MORE BOOK! You should try out for the show again, and this time you need to WIN.
Ernie: I’m not allowed to, Ma.
Mom: *sighs in disgust*Scenerio 2: Ernie won on the Weakest Link
Ernie: I won, Ma.
Mom: Oh! How much?
Ernie: [Ernie tells her how much he won]
Mom: THAT’S IT? YOU TOOK OFF THREE DAYS FROM WORK TO WIN THAT MUCH? You could have made money WORKING those three days, but instead you fly to Los Angeles and go on a game show?! *sighs in disgust*
Either way, I think I ended the conversation with the phrase “Hey Mom, it’s time for you to go now.”
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