Since my last few posts have been blatent swipes from other journals or quiz results (or both) I'm sharing a personal story. Most of my personal stories involve me doing something stupid or embarrassing, but they amuse me so I don't mind sharing. As my friends might not, I am now in the process of going back and editing out their names in my previous posts. Sigh - some day I'll get this LJ stuff.


My friend disbandedtoastr was taking sign language classes. ASL grammar structure is different from English. For example, if you wanted to say "I'm going to go to the bathroom" you would probably sign "restroom I go" or in my case "restroom I go NOW" as I'm always in some kind of bathroom emergency situation.

So her instructor had written on the board:
My name is ________
I live in _________
I like ____________

Each student was to go to the front of the class and answer these questions while the teacher sat in the back and translated. Toaster wanted to say she liked cats, but someone already said that. So she was going to say she liked horses, but the person who went just before her said horses. So as she walked to the front of the class she was thinking what am I going to say?!?!? She got up there and signed: "My" "name" "D-I-S-B-A-N-D-E-D T-O-A-S-T-E-R", "I" "live" "D-F-S", "I" "like" "horses" "and" "cats". The teacher in the background translated, "My name is DisbandedToaster, I live in (name of city), I like Satan and cats. Okay, class, what she meant to say was horses (demonstrates) but if you spread your fingers apart while making the sign it means Satan (demonstrate)."

KNOWING that my friend likes Satan I still let her talk me into going to a deaf convention with her so she wouldn't have to make the trip alone. She taught me how to say "my name's april, nice to meet you". At the convention I spotted a coworker so the next day at work I commented on her seeing her there. She said she was in ASL II, so I showed her what I'd learned. I went slowly through "my" "name" "A-P-R-I-L", "nice" "to meet" when she grabbed my hands and said "DON'T DO THAT!" She turned my hands from a horizontal position to a vertical one and said "when you meet someone you are standing up, not lying down". ASL is complicated, the position of your hands makes a big difference. Apparently I'd gone around saying "Hi, I'm April. Nice to sex you!"