Turning Red

Nora Ephron once said, “When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you.  But when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh.” Wise woman, Nora Ephron. My husband is the only person I know who actually years ago did slip on a banana peel. That I can say it happened specifically in the parking lot of an aquarium in Wanchese, North Carolina is how well I remember the occasion and what an impression it made. When we found out he wasn’t hurt, of course we laughed. It made — and still makes — a great story. It really does make a difference who is doing the telling. I tried to get Nora Ephron’s point across to our ten-year-old granddaughter when she fell and sprained her ankle in her gymnastics class this week. “What difference does it make?” she asked me. “They’re still going to laugh at you.” “It’s not the same,” I insisted.  A couple of months ago, I was at an ethnic grocery store and decided to try out the Spanish I’d been learning. There was a man who I deduced was speaking Spanish in the checkout line in front of me. I made a few what I felt were probably brilliant comments in Spanish before he smiled kindly at me and said, “I’m Filipino.”  Busted. Luckily, the woman in front of him had heard my attempt and in fact was Latina. She turned, initiated a short conversation with me, complimented me on my Spanish, and relieved my embarrassment. But only a little. In admitting the faux pas, it does indeed become my story. Now if I can just convince our granddaughter………..

Photo courtesy mintchipdesigns at Pixabay.com