I’m away for awhile in a glamorous, far away place where I’m actually wearing a sweater. (More on that later.) In my place today, please welcome one of my best friends in blogging and otherwise (sniff) and my fellow Mouthy Housewife, Marinka from MotherhoodinNYC. If you don’t already read her blog, well, what’s wrong with you? Anyway, Marinka moved to America from Russia as a child and still considers herself ESL. Now please to enjoy letter to us Americans from her.

Dear Native English speakers,

I have a few bones to pick with your language.  You see, I learned it when I was ten and there are expressions that trouble me.

Like the expression bones to pick.  How gross is that? The first time a friend told me that she had a bone to pick with me, I thought she was inviting me to some kind of a cannibal feast.  So it was a huge relief that she just wanted to discuss my flirting with her boyfriend.

Whatever, it takes two to tango.  Which I don’t even get and for a long time I thought that the expression was “it takes two to tangle.”  But why tango? Why not waltz?  And has “it takes two to tango” ever made anyone feel any better?  “Oh, I see! You are having an affair with my husband.  This is devastating news.  Although to be fair, the dance of tango does require two people, so everything makes sense.  At least it’s not a square dance! Carry on!”

But bone to pick is so much better than brain to pick. Whenever someone tells me that they want to pick my brain, I hope that it’s for tips on how to not disgust the person they’re approaching for advice.

And I know that life is just a bowl of cherries is supposed to denote happiness.  Nice try.  Maybe if you want happiness, you should specify that it’s a bowl of cherries in season .  And even then I have issues with it.  Because when I was in high school I got super high (on life, of course; especially if my Papa is reading this) and then I came home and ate a whole bowl of cherries that my parents had put out.  Probably in anticipation of a still life or something.

Do you know what happens when you set a world record in cherry consumption?  Care to guess? And that’s what life resembles sometimes. A toilet bowl of regurgitated cherries, which is disgusting and expensive to boot.  Because cherries cost and arm and a leg.  I’d like to know where people shop that they can pay with their limbs.  Was this before credit cards or something?

But what can you do?  That’s the way the cookie crumbles.  Oh, yes.  If the shit ever hits the fan,  please remind me that that’s it’s a natural consequence of a cookie lifespan.

Although  oddly shit hitting the fan is an expression that I fully appreciate.  It’s just so visual.

Please take care of this for me.  If you do, I’ll be happier than a pig in shit.

Love,

Marinka