About: margo

Name:margo
2008-05-26 21:04:36
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Posts by margo:

Excuse me sir, are you randy?

Let me start out by saying that although my passport claims that I am American, I grew up in the Foreign Service and lived all over, including in a British colony. I also spent some time in London, where I had an English boyfriend. Words in “American” sometimes have very different meanings in “British” English.

So there I was, one hot night in September in San Francisco at my American friend Tom’s apartment for a dinner party, to celebrate the arrival of Tom’s wife’s brother from Virginia. This was in the eighties, so you know, any excuse for a party! The wife was supposed to pick him up from Union Square; which was right down the street from the apartment, where he was to have taken a train from the airport. It was at this time that the kitchen pipes decided to spring a rather sizeable and dramatic leak, and pandemonium ensued. There were already several guests already at the house. Tom, in a panic, asked me if I would just walk down to the square and meet his brother in law, so he could deal with the exploding pipe situation. I of course agreed, and as I was going out the door, I asked “by the way, what is his name?” Tom replied “Randy-you can’t miss him, about 5′11 medium brown hair, and he’ll have luggage.”

So off I went down to Union Square. It somehow slipped my mind that there is a huge taxi stand in Union Square, and there were dozens of non- descript white males tourists there that fit the description, that were dragging luggage behind them. Also, it should be noted, that this was the 80s, and it was one of the rarest of evenings in San Francisco-meaning a hot one, and I was dressed in my appropriate 80’s party clothes for a summer evening (scant dress, big hair, disco ball earrings, lots of makeup.) I suddenly realized that I had neglected to ask what was Randy’s LAST NAME, so that I could at least approach people and say “Excuse me sir, but are you Mr. ______?”

I was then in the position of walking up to the first gentleman that looked like he fit the description, and asking him, with a big welcoming smile on my face, “Excuse me sir, are you Randy?”

. . .

The horror of what was just uttered from my lips hit me, and I looked at the guy, and started laughing uncontrollably. Hysterically. Like. A. Hyena. And then I ran and hid behind the potted palm in front of the hotel.

For those of you that aren’t following this, in British English, “randy” means “horny”. (As in “don’t go out with that bloke-he is totally randy”).

I couldn’t get it out of my mind that I was approaching perfect strangers and asking them, in my tarty 80s getup, IN THE MIDDLE OF UNION SQUARE at 8 o’clock on a Saturday night, if they were horny. Well, this guy was not Randy. He probably was not even randy, considering that he was being accosted by some apparently crazy chick with disco ball earrings. And neither were the 4 or 5 other men that I approached. Even after spending a few minutes collecting myself, what can I say, I just could not maintain! Each time, I tried, oh lord jesus, I tried to look serious, and keep a straight face. And every time, I only got through the first syllable “Excuse me sir, are you Ran….. (snicker)………are you Ran………Rannnnndd………..BWAHAHAHAHA!” and then I would run behind a marble pillar and berate myself for not maintaining. Since all the guests at Tom’s house (ok, including me) had been imbibing in copious amounts of herbal supplements for at least an hour before the pipes burst, I suddenly started getting paranoid that with the time of night, and my outfit, that men were probably thinking that I was soliciting them for prostitution, I would surely end up arrested and in jail, disco ball earrings, and all. And how in the hell was I going to make the long distance telephone call to my dad, who was now posted to Rome, that I was busted for solicitation and needed someone to bail me out? This was before the days of the cell phone!

So, what did I do? Did I brave it out for the sake of my friendship with Tom? Did I manage to “buck up” and finally find the stranded “Randy”?

Hell no! I did not! I ended up taking a cab back to my apartment, passing out, and cowardly calling Tom the next day.

Sadly, this was the beginning of the end of our friendship, as alas, he did not grasp the irony of the situation.

August 14, 2008 | Filed Under General Forum, Stories | 7 Comments 

Any ex-Embassy brats on this site?

Hey all,

I grew up in the American Foreign Service, and am wondering if there are any adult Foreign Service brats here? I lived mainly in Italy, Mexico, Venezuela, Canada, D.C. and Belize. But I have never bumped into other Embassy brats since. Any of them here?

Also, what was your favorite country? Did you like growing up that way or did you hate it? Did you go to boarding school? How did it effect your life later on? Raves? Rants? Horror stories?

Let me know!

June 28, 2008 | Filed Under General Forum | 1 Comment 

You can’t make this sh*t up!

When I was 14, my parents got stationed in Belize for 4 years. Our first summer there, my older brother came down from the States to visit. One day, we took my parents’ Zodiac boat on the Belmopan River. The river snaked through a very dense and remote jungle, and we didn’t see even one human being for hours, just the occasional manatee. I still can’t believe my parents let us do this, because if we would have gotten into any kind of trouble, it would have taken them months to find us. I don’t know what ever possessed me, but at one point, I stood up and started singing a Creole song about Sandra, a big-bottomed Belizean girl who liked to shake her sizeable booty while dancing. “If Sandra wants to wind, let her wind, let her wind (pronounced like “whined), if Sandra wants to wind, let her shake up her big behind!” This of course, was paired with my own “interpretive dance” of the song, cause hey-nobody was around for miles, right? I started to feel free, empowered, one with the jungle- my body was pulsing; I started to whip my hair around with unfettered abandon……..

Suddenly, and inexplicably, dozens of howler monkeys appeared in the mangrove trees above us and started furiously screeching and violently shaking the branches at us. This was bad enough, but we sped up the boat and then they started chasing us down the river, angrily throwing rotten plantains at us! It was pretty scary, and we thought they were going to start leaping onto the boat.

This is the main reason why I never considered a career as a singer.

June 22, 2008 | Filed Under General Forum, Stories | 20 Comments 

New TCK from San Francisco

Hey All,

I am so glad that I found this site. I grew up (third generation) Foreign Service. I have lived in Venezuela, Canada, Italy (3 different times)Belize, D.C, boarding school in Arizona. I am currently in SF, any other TCKs live here that want to connect? I am now going back to college and majoring in Cross Cultural Communications because I really want to help other TCKs like me with their problems. Believe me, I sure had a lot of those!

May 28, 2008 | Filed Under General Forum | 3 Comments