Dousch! Douche! Tush!

"Whoa! They are really into douches in this country, huh?" Said Mom-One-Won in her really American accent years ago as we walked down an aisle in a supermarket in Switzerland.  I'm not sure why, but her remark stuck with me.  I think it is proof-positive that learning a foreign language is a long, twisted, rough, at times, sticky, wet, and not to mention, muddy dirt road upon which it would be better to drive a 4x4 rather than public transport, even if it is on time.  Back in the grocery store, in that patient way Expats or Cowpats do for loved ones flown in from the Country Formerly Called Home, I explained to Mom-One-Won, "In German and French, Dousch or douche is the word for shower."
"Oh! So it comes from French then!" she exclaimed.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist or even a linguist to tell you zat French just soundz good, non?  Except when they say NASA which comes out sounding like nazi.  Rockets and douches aside.  The point is, soap and therefore douschgel, shampoo, and possibly washing detergent are totally over-rated.  I tend to prefer more obvious distinctions like the one between window cleaner and toothpaste.  But soap and douschgel are just dumb.   First of all, neither one is good for Crocodile skin, we prefer oil.  Second, you know that saying going around on the internet, "If you can read this, you are intelligent.  If you have a computer, you are rich."  I would like to add to that, "If you have shampoo, soap and Douschgel in your bathroom, you are filthy rich and suffer from dry skin."
Do you realize how many times I hear the word dousch in Switzerland?  It is also the word Alla and Kazam use when they are pretending to shoot at each other.  They have never learned the American English equivalent of Pow! or even Bang! Bang! Their education is sadly lacking in any other sort of mouth exploding shot sounds.  When Alla and Kazam are shooting at each other they say "Dousch! Dousch! Dousch!" Usually while holding up the last bare toilet roll that nobody has replaced or bought a replacement for.

To which I say, "Please close the door.  The bathroom is getting cold, and I'd like to help the world, one douche at a time."
Yours, spreading my tail out of the tub,
Mrs Crocodile

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Body parts and other bits to avoid in the post Valentine's season

How many times have you heard Swiss men say:  "Oh Valentine's day, it's just another over-commercialized holiday."  
To which I respond to all bankers: "Why export a holiday if it's not going to do any good for the flow of the economy and therefore the flow of love?"  Just think: Where would we in Europe and America be today if they hadn't exported Christmas from the Middle East?  Swiss people actually call Christmas "a fest of love",  which surprised me because I thought they were talking about V-day.  And then I remembered Jesus was all about love, too.
Well, we did better than old J.C. this year; we survived it.  Surprisingly, so did the 100 or so men standing in line at the Coop flower market yesterday evening just before closing time, where the line snaked all the way out of the shop and up the escalators to street level: The image is good, non?  I wish I was an illustrator, but I have to use words.  All of the men who think Valentine's day is an over-rated, over-commercialized, imported, annoyingly American fest are on an escalator going down, down, down to get their red roses and there are so many of them they can't stop, so they all start falling on top of each other and trying to run back up the escalator to safety.  At times, you see a few heads popping out of the crowd with a white wrapped up sort of triangular package, they are carrying it upside down like good European flower carriers and are now traveling up and out of the over-rated, over-commercialized, imported American red love fest and making it home to their sweetie where we hope they will remember to practice the out-of-bounds rule on body parts, which is this:  anyone, even yourself, discussing certain negative aspects of your body (and clothing) is completely off-limits.  This includes, hair, hips, arms, thighs and anything else which might be closely related to your anatomy.
If you keep this up throughout the year you may survive the pile-up at the bottom of the escalators,
Yours, with love,
Mrs Crocodile

For more help on buying roses for a loved one in Switzerland: Swiss Survival Tip: Grocery Shopping

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The Cotton Candy Friend vs. The Chocolate Friend

Have you heard of the Cotton Candy friend?  You know who I'm talking about; it's fun while you're getting to know each other, but there is no lasting relationship built upon anything solid except maybe a flimsy stick.  After a while, you realize it was just a lot of hot air and sugar and you stay friends with them on Facebook.

A Chocolate Friend takes more investment and time.  As opposed to the Cotton Candy Friend, with the Chocolate Friend there is a solid relationship built up which might last many years, even a lifetime.  As an example, a member of my family has had an over 60 year relationship with a Hershy's bar, with almonds please. 

In Switzerland, the variety of chocolate is grotesque, which makes finding the right melt in your mouth experience very difficult indeed.  Two years ago, my favorite was taken off the market.  Strangely, it is still sold in Germany.  So after a few months of personal chocolate hell, where the only treatment was to actually try many different kinds with things mixed in that should never be married with beans grown in a tropical region, I decided on a new favorite or to secretly go over the border for my fix.

If you have lived in different countries, you are sure to have a favorite chocolate and a favorite friend in every city, like a sailor has a wife in every port.  And so it is with Chocolate Friends.  When I first came to Switzerland, I had no friends, so I had to eat a lot of a certain sweet substance, dark please.  By the way, chocolate friends are not hollow, but solid all the way through.  Really good chocolate friends are hard to find and when you do discover them, you tend to horde them obsessively and not share.

I am thankful to my chocolate friends for getting me through the day...
Yours,
Mrs Chocodile

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Why Mrs Crocodile?

At a reception, a glass of wine in my hand. Words exchanged and then the inevitable: "Oh, you're Mrs Crocodile!" Then curiosity is sparked: "But why Mrs Crocodile?" To which I always want to say, "Well, you remembered the name" smile and show my teeth.

Actually, fresh off the Rhine taxi in Switzerland, before I could speak German I obviously had to resort to other more crude forms of communicating like speaking English and with hand gestures and an annoyingly cheerful American smile, which doesn't always go down too well around here. Mostly because people are thinking, "What is this woman so damn happy about?" I like to tell them that I eat children in the nicest possible way. But this too, is hard to wash down for most people.

The real un-adulterated and not the answer you want to hear is this: There were some neighbor kids that came to my house and not being able to communicate with them, I pulled out a book with nice pictures and a very easy repetitive story and read it out loud to them. Then we played the Crocodile game and ran all around yelling, "Can't catch me!" It wasn't long before the neighbors started calling me Mrs Crocodile and the name stuck. Don't worry, I let the kids go home to their parents.

Today, even though I miss running around with 3-5-year-old kids and trying to teach them some English, I kept it, because everybody started calling me that, but I'm thinking of changing it.  But now that I think about it, it just works for the Mrs Crocodile Blog: chomping bits of life up and putting them back together.  I just haven't had another name stick for a while, now.  But I like to sing while I'm running away: "Can't catch me!"
Yours,
Mrs Crocodile

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