Archives for August 30th, 2006

Can’t… fight… this feeling… anymore… must… resist… cigarettes…

My daughter, who will soon turn three, recently came to me in the living room and said:

“Daddy, can I have a light?”

‘Damnit,’ I thought, ’she can barely eat by herself and already Big Tobacco has gotten to her. It was probably that sonnuvabitch Joe Camel. Or maybe some rowdies at her nursery.’

Unless I misunderstood her… Maybe she wanted me to turn on a light?

“You want me to turn on the light?” I asked.
“No, no. Give me a light,” she answered, making a motion to her mouth.

I suppose it’s inevitable that kids go through this, I just didn’t expect it to come so soon. I mean, she still wears diapers at night, and now she wants to toke up in the living room in front of her father. God knows what she’ll be saying when she’s six. Probably: “Yo, Dad, got any speedballs? Let’s break that shit out, yo.”

I called my wife over to discuss what rehab center to put our daughter in, but — like most parents — she was in denial. Refusing to accept that our child has a problem, she made some inquiries of her own, but no matter what she asked, our daughter kept insisting on getting a light while pointing to her lips. We were baffled, until my wife asked her to try explaining herself in Slovene. To which she said:

“Jaz hoÄ?em luÄ?ko.”

That’s literally, “I want a light” except that in Slovene, a “light” is also something akin to this.

And so, the dangers of smoking were successfully avoided. But the dangers of directly translating Slovene into English remain dangerously present…