PBE4UGO

I just received an email from a friend with a photo of an Ontario license plate. As a former Windsorite, I took notice.

It said:

PBE4UGO

Took me a second.

Then I roared. My kinda guy. This plate was almost as good as the one another Canadian friend of mine has.

Hers says: BSEDER.

I think every license plate in Israel should have SAVLANUT on it...patience.

So, did I ever tell you how, when my two oldest were babies, I signed up for the Open University to learn Arabic? I figured, that in every country you should know how to say, 'Where is the bathroom?' and 'Don't kill me!'

With two little ones, I couldn't take a class, but the Open University was perfect. You study at home and have the name and phone number of a teacher in case you need help. You can also meet once a week, but I wasn't looking for a degree or anything, I just wanted to learn the language.

Imagine my joy when the box of books finally arrived. Yahooooo.

I grabbed my pencil, opened my notebook and turned the first page. IT WAS ALL IN HEBREW!!!

Oy! I never thought of that. Of course the course was in Hebrew. This is Jerusalem. In Israel.

Don't ask!

It looked something like this: אינטה מג'נון (inteh majnun) which loosely translated into Hebrew is אתה משוגה (attah meshuggah) which translated into Enlish means du bist meshuggeh....wait! wait, that's Yiddish! Which means, you're crazy.

Never one to give up, I forced myself to read the Hebrew, understand what they were trying to tell me, and then learn it all in Arabic.

I am happy to tell you that I got an 83 in the first course. And never continued. To this day I don't know how to say, 'Where is the bathroom?' or 'Don't kill me!'

I can say 'Ahahlan'(howdy), 'Ya Eini' (my eyes...holy cow), 'Ya Allah' ( oh my God),and all kinds of nasty things pertaining to a certain part of a woman's anatomy. But never learned the language.

A pity. See, as a former Canadian, I learned to read and write both English and French and feel that a person should speak all the languages of his/her country.

At the time, I searched everywhere for an English/Arabic set of books. I spoke to Waghi, who worked for my husband. I asked everywhere. I mean the British were here for donkey's years, for heaven's sake! Didn't they have a manual or two lying around?

Nope. I guess they didn't need a toilet and weren't afraid of being killed.

I wonder how you say PBE4UGO in Arabic? Hmmmm, the mind boggles.

Have a great day...stay safe...and thanks for dropping in.