You've got a little dingley-dangley on your chin...
Ahh, summer's rapidly coming to an end (school starts in less than 20 days!) and my last week here in NY is reminding me of my (second-to) last week in England.
Well, not really, but I remembered a very funny story from last summer that I wished to commit to "paper" before it leaves my brain. So Dispatches from Fort Awesome presents to you...
The Story My Lovely British Hostess Chose to Tell Me Within the First Twenty Minutes of Our Meeting For No Apparent Reason, and How Incredibly Grateful I Am for That Fact. Recalled and Recorded and Bolded by Julia.
I grew up in Australia ("G'day throw another shrimp on the barbie" haha shutit) and some of our friends from there had friends in England (Upper Something-shire - I'd have to go look it up) so they (the Aussies) contacted the Brits and the Brits "couldn't wait" to meet me, so I call to arrange the little trip out to Upper Smtgshire.
As a sidenote, i'd like to say that the British red telephone booth is an incredibly unpleasant experience in the summer because
(a) someone has recently puked in every single one (i think it's a union job)
(b) the slight heat makes the stench that much more stenchy and
(c) some bastard PETA people have put vivisection photo stickers all overn all surfaces at eye level, so you talk to your dear old family while looking at mutilated bunny bits. On second thought, maybe that's why the poor unfortunate booted in the booth. (PETA- what's the deal? do your tactics win any supporters? at all? really? because you just piss me off).
I call the family and the Mrs. picks up (I think I'll call her Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, because she was so lovely and hospitable and their farm was so very Beatrix Potter). She has a high breathy-but-croaky drawn-out way of speaking, along with the lovely accent, and so she says "Helloooo daaaaaaahling" and I immediate want to pull a Madonna and say "Hellloooo daaaaaahling" myself. But I keep my vulgar americanisms, and we arrange that I'll travel out there on train the next morning and she'll pick me up and we'll go to a very large manor house that is just a "few villages, daahling, just a quick pootle" from Upper Smtgshire and then we'll go back and have tea with her daughter, the Barrister. Hurray! Or, Hurrah, rather.
The next morning I set out with my obligatory flowers (stargazer lillies- the entire train trip was me trying to think of what lillies stood for in flower language and then (falsely) remembering that they stood for "I'm sorry for the loss of your loved one" and kicking myself) to Upper Smtgshire. Mrs. Tiggy-winkle promptly scoops me up from the train station and we take windy roads back to her house so that I can "seeeee some of eeeengland, daaahling. You never see the pastoooral unless you travel by caaaaah." I learn all the family's names, what they are doing at the moment (haying) and in the general scheme of life, and the few things that we must do before we set off to the large manor house nearby (feed the cats, ducks and horses).
At this point I say, "O, I love horses" because I do, and so I get to meet both Tony and the other one, who's name I have forgotten. But I shall never forget Tony's name, because of the story I then heard.
As we're walking through the house gathering the cats, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle starts telling me about how Tony came to live at the Tiggy-Winkle residence. She begins innocently enough, telling me how her youngest daughter begged and begged for a pony and so when she was nine, they took her over to a neighboring farm to look at the old ponys to pick one out. (One difference between England and America: Horses are normalish animals to possess there. When I begged and begged for a pony/dog, I got a goldfish because "everyone's allergic." To this day, I'm still waiting for my mammal pet.) (Also gave rise to one of my favorite things to say. When someone's whining about wanting something (or not whining, i'm indiscriminate) I say "Oh yeah? Well I always wanted a pony. We can't always get what we want" and it tends to shut down the whole conversation as I take a beat before I laugh and say "Just kidding!" Most of the time, i'm not.) Pamela (name changed again, but Pamela seems a very British name) picked out Tony, a white pony about 10 years old, and they rode him back to the farm.
So three days later, Pamela goes out with the feed bucket to tend to Tony and she comes running back in almost immediately. "Mummymummymummy! Tony's got white stuff all over his dingley-dangley! What do I do?"
"Dingley-Dangley?" I think. Then the lightening bolt hits my brain, and I can hardly keep from dropping all the cats to fall down laughing. Obviously this is a british euphemism I have never heard before, but like all great euphemisms, it is both descriptive and desparately funny. And AND I can't believe that this proper British woman is telling me a story that seems very dingley-dangley intensive, even if it is the dingley-dangley of a horse.
"So I say to her 'Let me call the horse trainer in the next village, and we'll see what she says' because I have never owned a horse before," Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle has gone ahead with the story, not noticing that I'm imploding with giggles. "So I call the trainer, and she says 'You have to wash it yourself. They can't reach around and lick it like dogs can.' And so I turn back to Pamela and I say 'Dear, you must get some soapy water and a loofah and rinse off Tony's dingley-dangley so that he is clean.' After all, it is her horse and her responsibility. She asks me to do it, but when we bought her the pony, we told her that she would be solely in charge of him. So she sets out towards the barn with a bucket of warm soapy and a loofah, with a look of grim determination on her face."
By this time, we're pouring water into the cats' bowls and I'm thinking "the worst is over, if you can just get through the end of the story without laughing, she will not know that you are a 13 year old on the inside." But I was wrong.
"About five minutes later, Pamela comes running in saying "Mummymummymummy! I soaped his dingley-dangley and rinsed it, and then it was gone! i was holding it and it went shoooop! right back into him!"
At that point, I picked up my water glass and turned around because I was losing it. Looooosing it. I've known this woman for 20 minutes and she has just told me the best new euphemism + amusing child-and-animal story I have ever heard. At that point, I knew that the rest of the day could only go downhill from here.
But no, it was quite perfect, as then we went and had salmon sandwiches at a really old club in the next village and she "knewwww you were an Aquaaaaarius daaaahling. You're so frrrrrriendly and smart!" And then we journeyed to the manor house, which was awesome, because one of my favorite things to do is go to huge old houses with British tourguides. While looking at the ancestral portraits, I also got to hear about how wonderful the Atkins diet is and how I, as a diabetic, should be on it. But somehow, coming from Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle this did not even rankle me a bit. I was flattered that she thought of my health. It's amazing how much a great accent, a bunch of flattery and a new penis-euphemism will butter me up. (Keep that in mind) And then I met the star of the dingley-dangley story and we talked about how much it sucks for Barristers in England (it really does, but that is another post-worth's information) and other topics that I won't get into here. It was a perfect afternoon- I even got to hold a duck and it didn't poop on me!
It was time to say good-bye, and so there was much hugging and promises to write or visit and say hello to our mutual Australian friends. I met up with my girl-chums in London (Agatha and Perpetua) and of course the first thing I tell them is the Dingley-Dangley story, because it would be cruel to deprive them of the pleasure I received from it. For the rest of the night, we made efforts to use it inocuously when we got back to the states.
Examples:
"Hey, Perpetua, some spinach from your omelette is dingley-dangling from your mouth."
Or
"Do you like my new earrings?"
"Oh my yes, they're very dingley-dangley"
Or
"Well, I was going to go out with Steve on Friday, but I felt kinda dingley-dangley, y'know? So I had to cancel"
Go on- make up your own! (and post them in comments!) Agatha got veery sick of the dingley-dangliese (see? it's now a language!) and around 11pm forbid us to say it anymore. We slowed it down at that point, but about every other block walking back from the pub, we'd see something and Perpetua'd say "I really like the dingley-dangley flower pots on that porch" and I would roll around on the pavement laughing while Agatha would look all nettled. Sorry hon!
SO that's my favorite England story that happened with people not from school. There is also the tale of the bicycle trip from hell, or "Dolly the Stallion" as it is also known, but I need to go do something productive with my day.
Last note: My girl chum name was/is Millicent Wang, and it took me a year to realize that Wang is also a penile euphemism. But really, it's just a coincidence, because Wang was the name above my door at Cambridge. You, my daaaahling, can call me Millicent Dingley-Dangley.
Well, not really, but I remembered a very funny story from last summer that I wished to commit to "paper" before it leaves my brain. So Dispatches from Fort Awesome presents to you...
The Story My Lovely British Hostess Chose to Tell Me Within the First Twenty Minutes of Our Meeting For No Apparent Reason, and How Incredibly Grateful I Am for That Fact. Recalled and Recorded and Bolded by Julia.
I grew up in Australia ("G'day throw another shrimp on the barbie" haha shutit) and some of our friends from there had friends in England (Upper Something-shire - I'd have to go look it up) so they (the Aussies) contacted the Brits and the Brits "couldn't wait" to meet me, so I call to arrange the little trip out to Upper Smtgshire.
As a sidenote, i'd like to say that the British red telephone booth is an incredibly unpleasant experience in the summer because
(a) someone has recently puked in every single one (i think it's a union job)
(b) the slight heat makes the stench that much more stenchy and
(c) some bastard PETA people have put vivisection photo stickers all overn all surfaces at eye level, so you talk to your dear old family while looking at mutilated bunny bits. On second thought, maybe that's why the poor unfortunate booted in the booth. (PETA- what's the deal? do your tactics win any supporters? at all? really? because you just piss me off).
I call the family and the Mrs. picks up (I think I'll call her Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, because she was so lovely and hospitable and their farm was so very Beatrix Potter). She has a high breathy-but-croaky drawn-out way of speaking, along with the lovely accent, and so she says "Helloooo daaaaaaahling" and I immediate want to pull a Madonna and say "Hellloooo daaaaaahling" myself. But I keep my vulgar americanisms, and we arrange that I'll travel out there on train the next morning and she'll pick me up and we'll go to a very large manor house that is just a "few villages, daahling, just a quick pootle" from Upper Smtgshire and then we'll go back and have tea with her daughter, the Barrister. Hurray! Or, Hurrah, rather.
The next morning I set out with my obligatory flowers (stargazer lillies- the entire train trip was me trying to think of what lillies stood for in flower language and then (falsely) remembering that they stood for "I'm sorry for the loss of your loved one" and kicking myself) to Upper Smtgshire. Mrs. Tiggy-winkle promptly scoops me up from the train station and we take windy roads back to her house so that I can "seeeee some of eeeengland, daaahling. You never see the pastoooral unless you travel by caaaaah." I learn all the family's names, what they are doing at the moment (haying) and in the general scheme of life, and the few things that we must do before we set off to the large manor house nearby (feed the cats, ducks and horses).
At this point I say, "O, I love horses" because I do, and so I get to meet both Tony and the other one, who's name I have forgotten. But I shall never forget Tony's name, because of the story I then heard.
As we're walking through the house gathering the cats, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle starts telling me about how Tony came to live at the Tiggy-Winkle residence. She begins innocently enough, telling me how her youngest daughter begged and begged for a pony and so when she was nine, they took her over to a neighboring farm to look at the old ponys to pick one out. (One difference between England and America: Horses are normalish animals to possess there. When I begged and begged for a pony/dog, I got a goldfish because "everyone's allergic." To this day, I'm still waiting for my mammal pet.) (Also gave rise to one of my favorite things to say. When someone's whining about wanting something (or not whining, i'm indiscriminate) I say "Oh yeah? Well I always wanted a pony. We can't always get what we want" and it tends to shut down the whole conversation as I take a beat before I laugh and say "Just kidding!" Most of the time, i'm not.) Pamela (name changed again, but Pamela seems a very British name) picked out Tony, a white pony about 10 years old, and they rode him back to the farm.
So three days later, Pamela goes out with the feed bucket to tend to Tony and she comes running back in almost immediately. "Mummymummymummy! Tony's got white stuff all over his dingley-dangley! What do I do?"
"Dingley-Dangley?" I think. Then the lightening bolt hits my brain, and I can hardly keep from dropping all the cats to fall down laughing. Obviously this is a british euphemism I have never heard before, but like all great euphemisms, it is both descriptive and desparately funny. And AND I can't believe that this proper British woman is telling me a story that seems very dingley-dangley intensive, even if it is the dingley-dangley of a horse.
"So I say to her 'Let me call the horse trainer in the next village, and we'll see what she says' because I have never owned a horse before," Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle has gone ahead with the story, not noticing that I'm imploding with giggles. "So I call the trainer, and she says 'You have to wash it yourself. They can't reach around and lick it like dogs can.' And so I turn back to Pamela and I say 'Dear, you must get some soapy water and a loofah and rinse off Tony's dingley-dangley so that he is clean.' After all, it is her horse and her responsibility. She asks me to do it, but when we bought her the pony, we told her that she would be solely in charge of him. So she sets out towards the barn with a bucket of warm soapy and a loofah, with a look of grim determination on her face."
By this time, we're pouring water into the cats' bowls and I'm thinking "the worst is over, if you can just get through the end of the story without laughing, she will not know that you are a 13 year old on the inside." But I was wrong.
"About five minutes later, Pamela comes running in saying "Mummymummymummy! I soaped his dingley-dangley and rinsed it, and then it was gone! i was holding it and it went shoooop! right back into him!"
At that point, I picked up my water glass and turned around because I was losing it. Looooosing it. I've known this woman for 20 minutes and she has just told me the best new euphemism + amusing child-and-animal story I have ever heard. At that point, I knew that the rest of the day could only go downhill from here.
But no, it was quite perfect, as then we went and had salmon sandwiches at a really old club in the next village and she "knewwww you were an Aquaaaaarius daaaahling. You're so frrrrrriendly and smart!" And then we journeyed to the manor house, which was awesome, because one of my favorite things to do is go to huge old houses with British tourguides. While looking at the ancestral portraits, I also got to hear about how wonderful the Atkins diet is and how I, as a diabetic, should be on it. But somehow, coming from Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle this did not even rankle me a bit. I was flattered that she thought of my health. It's amazing how much a great accent, a bunch of flattery and a new penis-euphemism will butter me up. (Keep that in mind) And then I met the star of the dingley-dangley story and we talked about how much it sucks for Barristers in England (it really does, but that is another post-worth's information) and other topics that I won't get into here. It was a perfect afternoon- I even got to hold a duck and it didn't poop on me!
It was time to say good-bye, and so there was much hugging and promises to write or visit and say hello to our mutual Australian friends. I met up with my girl-chums in London (Agatha and Perpetua) and of course the first thing I tell them is the Dingley-Dangley story, because it would be cruel to deprive them of the pleasure I received from it. For the rest of the night, we made efforts to use it inocuously when we got back to the states.
Examples:
"Hey, Perpetua, some spinach from your omelette is dingley-dangling from your mouth."
Or
"Do you like my new earrings?"
"Oh my yes, they're very dingley-dangley"
Or
"Well, I was going to go out with Steve on Friday, but I felt kinda dingley-dangley, y'know? So I had to cancel"
Go on- make up your own! (and post them in comments!) Agatha got veery sick of the dingley-dangliese (see? it's now a language!) and around 11pm forbid us to say it anymore. We slowed it down at that point, but about every other block walking back from the pub, we'd see something and Perpetua'd say "I really like the dingley-dangley flower pots on that porch" and I would roll around on the pavement laughing while Agatha would look all nettled. Sorry hon!
SO that's my favorite England story that happened with people not from school. There is also the tale of the bicycle trip from hell, or "Dolly the Stallion" as it is also known, but I need to go do something productive with my day.
Last note: My girl chum name was/is Millicent Wang, and it took me a year to realize that Wang is also a penile euphemism. But really, it's just a coincidence, because Wang was the name above my door at Cambridge. You, my daaaahling, can call me Millicent Dingley-Dangley.
posted by julia at
3:20 PM
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