Dang it!

You know, I do my best to go along with this whole "refusal to adopt English as our official language" thing about which so much of the world is so adamant, but I still find myself falling short. Twice in the past week, I've stepped onto an elevator with someone else who's ended up closer to the buttons that I've been. I've asked them if they could push the button for drei (pronounced like "dry," except that if you say the "r" like Americans say the "r," you sound like an ignorant American), which is German for "three." Being Swiss, they smile politely, and then the push the button for "two." In German, that's zwei (pronounced something like "tsfy"). To my ear, my drei and my zwei sound quite different, but I'm obviously failing to get that point across to the Swiss.

Now, I suppose I could avoid the whole thing by giving in to Ignorant American Syndrome and just say "dry" with the American "r," but I refuse to give up just yet. I'll concede that one could argue that the only thing worse than appearing to be an ignorant American is being an ignorant American who's trying and failing to pass as a Swiss and who refuses to admit to being an ignorant American, but that's my approach so far and I'm sticking to it. That "r" in drei has to come more from the back of the throat rather than from the tip of the tongue, which is a tricky sound for an American to make. I haven't mastered it yet, but I'm going to get there.

Single parent report: The kids are both alive, and as far as I can tell, they haven't suffered any irreversible physical harm yet, so everything's going just fine.