Cricket kisses

Funny moments, Week 3


(1) Grillos and Gringos

Apparently, crickets eat a much healthier diet here than they do in the States. Example A, look up. That’s an average-sized woman’s hand, and a ginormously-sized cricket (or grillo, in Spanish terms).

One night after work, I walked into the restaurant area of the hotel we were staying at, and one of the waitresses asked me if I’d like to eat a grillo for dinner, because there was a tiny cricket on the dinner table. Excitedly, I described to her the ginormous cricket that I saw earlier that day at the worksite (look up, again).

More excitedly, a European couple and their two little kids start pointing to the table next to them, and the kids are practically jumping out of their seats as they’re pointing (I guessed they were European by their tremendously pale skin, blond hair, blue eyes, and great accent). Lo and behold, there’s a ginormous (yes, that’s the correct term for the size of these things) grillo sitting on the dinner table next to this family.

“GOO!” I jumped back a few inches as I yelled that rather odd Adam Sandler expression, and the little European kids were getting a kick out of it. I then start inching my way towards the grillo, definitely causing the Europeans to wonder if all Americans are this strange, and the grillo jumps as high as it can and flies off. “Shucks, I missed my opportunity,” I’m thinking . . . until the grillo flies straight into a fan light and lands with a loud PLOP! in between two dinner-eating restaurant patrons.

“GOO!”

Boy, did those European kids love that exchange of events. . .

(2) A Purple Kiss

Wednesday night, Christ Church group devotional time. In a group of sixteen adults and two middle school kids, we decided to tell funny/embarrassing stories about ourselves. But, to make an interesting game out of it, three people would gather together away from the group, and then return to the group and tell similar funny/embarrassing stories. Then the rest of us had to guess which story was actually true, as all of the stories were based on the true story of one group member.

Now I get to tell you about Les, who is an incredible man to get to know. He’s also one of the funniest men I’ve ever met, and I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing this story.

When my name was drawn for the game, along with two other names, we were using the story that I blogged about for my week 2 funny moment, a Match Made in VBS Heaven. Les, who was once called Lester Purple by his not-so-nice friends in school (for no reason, mind you), looked at me and said he’d never been to Vacation Bible School in his life. This was funny because we had just spent the past three days doing VBS for the kids in Costa Rica, and Les had more church experience under his belt than any other member of the Christ Church team. So, I told him to simply make up a story about when he had been a matchmaker at VBS.

A woman from our group told her version of my story, saying that she tried to introduce two single adults during VBS registration, and was therefore a VBS matchmaker. I told my actual story, about how I tried to help a Costa Rican teenage boy win bonus points with an American teenage girl, and was therefore a VBS matchmaker. And then Les told his completely invented tale (as the game calls for), about how he was a VBS matchmaker.

Les said that in third grade his mother used to take him to VBS at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas. She’d always drop him off in the morning and then pick him up in the afternoon. However, one day, he had to call his mom to have her to pick him up early. The reason she had to pick him up early: Lester Purple had tried to kiss a young girl his age and was kicked out of Vacation Bible School at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. That was his translation of a VBS matchmaker.

This story may not appear funny to you, but if you knew Les, as all of us on that trip did, you would have been crying too.