Today, somebody in FB accidently typed the word ‘foul’ instead of the word ‘foil’. I laughed and told her this story:
My mother has terrible handwriting. Nobody has ever–in the history of time (at least my time)–ever been able to decipher it.
When my parents were first married, my mum wrote my dad a shopping list. After the regular stuff: Bread, butter, milk, veges, fruit, etc., she listed: foil
However, no matter how hard my dad tried, he could not decipher that word. He even asked a number of people around him. He showed the list to an employee. Everybody just got red, mumbled some sort of reply, and left him alone.
He and everybody he asked thought she had written: fart.
I was with dad that day. We had gone to the corner store to get a few items. And you’re right, no one knew what that last item was. Dad first asked me to decipher the word. I looked at it and giggled (I was less than 10 yrs old). I asked him why mum would want to buy a fart. He then asked the shop keeper who went red in the face and said he didn’t sell those at his store. No one knew what to think. He had to use a pay phone in the store and call mum.
Tee hee.