I am telling this on behalf of my wife, Rosi.
My absent-minded father's trouser pockets were always bulging. In them there were cigarettes, matches, lighters, spanners and ordinary keys, nuts, screwdrivers, coins and so on. From a distance he looked like a cowboy with two six-shooters. When he fancied a smoke, he would rummage in them helplessly and quickly give up if there was a smoker nearby. He would light up, greedily draw on the smoke and lift his gaze to the ceiling. He would let out a thin stream and sink into thought: “What a thing smoke is! Could its motion be described mathematically? Hardly, old chap!” He never looked for an ashtray; he would cup his palm under the cigarette and tap the ash into it, even if it had gone out. His deep reflections ended with... old chap or... damn it.
When he went away on business trips, he sometimes ended up wearing my mother's trench coat, and in the evening he would wonder why all day it had buttoned up somehow “the wrong way round”. He would come back with some of his clothes, and once – with someone else's suitcase.
My absent-mindedness was just like his, and I was often a laughing stock.
For example, I have guests over. They ask me for tea. I bring it to them. A little later the giggling starts. They had bet that I wouldn't bring them sugar and teaspoons. Once I really pulled myself together and paid close attention. I brought them a sugar bowl, teaspoons, even saucers. On one of them, though, instead of a teaspoon I had put a ballpoint pen – I was studying for an exam at the time. For ages afterwards they kept asking me to serve them “Tea with a pen”. The crowning moment was when I had forgotten to put any lime blossom in the teapot at all. Some of them drank it and even praised the tea, but one of them caught on, damn it. I will describe some cases in which my absent-mindedness had amused the people around me:
1.The Mezzanine
I worked at a design institute. Once a boss gave me a folder to hand over to the Soviet specialist who had been in our department the day before and who would be waiting for me at the entrance in front of the Mezzanine of TsUM. The man had a plane to catch.
“Run over there right now, take his folder and bring it straight back here!”
When I found myself in front of TsUM, I stopped to think. All that was clear to me was that the comrade was called Mezzanine, but TsUM had three entrances. I went from the far ones to the near one and back again. I looked around for a Soviet man with a folder. I asked two of them:
“Tovarishch Mezzanine?”
They gave me a look and shrugged.
Finally, as I flew past, all sweaty, in front of the lowest of the entrances, I heard: “Vy – Rositsa?”
“And you – Tovarishch Mezzanine?”
“Nyet, I am Novikov. Well, give me your little folder! And here is one for you! Bolshoye spasibo!”
When I got back to the office, I took the folder to the boss and snapped:
“You could have told me his name wasn't Mezzanine, but Novikov!”
The incident caused roars of laughter among my colleagues that very same day. In the end they explained to me that “mezzanine” meant a kind of ground floor. Damn them.
2.The Salami
One evening I stayed on after working hours. I had been given a project that was beyond my abilities, and I was sweating over it. The internal phone rang:
“Rosi, would you come up to my office?” I recognised the voice of the chief designer, Mitev. “Of course.” I went to his room. He and a colleague had their heads buried in the drawings; clearly they had problems. Mitev asked without looking up:
“Rosi, would you buy us some bread and some kind of salami from the grocer's nearby?” “Of course. But what kind of salami do you want?” “Well, what kinds of salami are there?” “There are hard ones, thin ones, long ones, soft ones, short ones, thick ones, dry ones, moist ones – all sorts.”
The two of them looked up and stared at me with interest:
“And is there a long, hard and thick one?” asked Mitev, amused. Perhaps he had just found the solution to their problems. I began to hesitate over whether to ask him a question about my project, when the other colleague repeated:
“Rosi, is there a long, hard and thick one?” “There might be, but I've never seen one like that!”
The two of them burst out laughing and sprayed the drawings with spit. I snapped at them:
“I don't know why you're laughing at me. If you don't stop, you can buy your own bread and salami!” “Wait, Rosi, tell us – what kind of salami do you personally prefer?” “Depends what I'm eating it with. If there are tomatoes, I'll have a thin, long and hard one. With just bread, I'd go for a soft and thick one.”
I flounced off and headed for the grocer's. The corridor was still ringing with their laughter, which was turning into wheezing. In the toilets I calmed down – nothing was sticking out of me and my make-up wasn't smudged. I quickly bought bread, salami and tomatoes and slammed them down on their desk. First thing the next morning my colleagues made me tell the story over and over again and were in fits of laughter.
“Will you finally tell me what's so funny?”
They explained it to me. Old men – give them half a chance and they'll talk about willies.
3.The Toilet
Quite a few years ago, my boyfriend and three of his fellow students had decided to treat themselves at “Feyata” – a favourite spot for many people in Sofia. The other guys' girlfriends didn't come. At some point I went to the toilet. When I came back, they were looking at me mockingly. I worried that maybe I smelled of toilet to them.
“Rosi, did you see anything unusual in there?” “Oh, yes – there was a man in there, I don't know why. And along one of the walls there were 4–5 idiotic little low washbasins lined up!” They laughed until they cried. I decided to clarify:
“Still, there was soap on the normal washbasin.” I stressed that point. They carried on sobbing: “Idiotic little low washbasins.” Annoyed, I demanded an explanation.
My boyfriend told me that I had gone into the men's toilet. I started making excuses:
“I swear the door said WC, but instead of ‘Women’ there was a picture of a woman in trousers. Well, they should make the pictures clearer!”
Fresh hysterical laughter. My boyfriend was the first to “come back”. He explained to me what the “idiotic little low washbasins” had been – urinals for men.
A little later his friends left and paid the bill. It turned out he had bet them that I would go into the men's toilet. I didn't speak to him for two days.
4.The Cognac
One Sunday my husband suggested we go out for a drink and let my parents look after our baby. For me the change of scene was very welcome. On the way he suggested that in the bar we follow this script:
“You and I are divorced. Our child is already 3 years old and lives with you. Today we're meeting to discuss some property issues regarding our divorce.”
We each ordered a small vodka and a fizzy drink. Soon another couple sat down at our table. We had really got into our roles and become rather fierce:
“So have you gone back to work yet?” “In two months. Before that I'll put the child in nursery.” “And I don't even know whether she's started talking!” “Are you an idiot or what? She's three and she talks better than you do!” I practically screamed at him. We were no longer acting, we were arguing. We weren't paying attention to anything. The waiter came and asked us to settle the bill.
My husband reached into his pocket and said: “Keep the change /40 stotinki/.”
Before the waiter could leave, the man from the other couple said to him:
“Wait, add my cognac to their bill as well!” “Excuse me?” we both leapt up almost at the same time. “You,” he looked at me, “you drank my cognac, but I didn't dare interrupt you!” “I'm sorry, but I never drink cognac!” “Well, today you did – mine!” The waiter moved away so we could sort it out. My husband and I were wondering what to do – we didn't have that much money. I also realised I was rather drunk. At that moment the woman at the table stepped in:
“Darling, didn't you see how absorbed they were in their conversation? Let that cognac go, please, and order yourself another one! And for them too, if they'd like anything else!”
5.The Mannequin
One afternoon my husband boasted on the phone that he had got a bonus. My female colleagues had just been saying that TsUM had brought in some very sweet ladies' suits. Delighted, I “invited” him to TsUM to buy me something to wear. There, whatever I stopped in front of, he would immediately ask: “Are we buying it?”
“Wait, I haven't decided yet.”
On the top floor we found ourselves in front of the stand of the newly opened fashion house “Valentina”. Whatever I touched, my husband was quick to say:
“Go and try it on!”
There were usually several of us women in the fitting room. I would have liked to look at myself from every angle in the mirror, but it was hard to get into position. From outside I could hear:
“Rosi? Does it fit? Rosi, what's going on?”
Finally I would poke my head out, dressed, and then came: “We'll take it!”
“Look, it's a bit tight in the shoulders and loose in the hips.”
“You'll put on a bit of weight. And you can take the skirt in. It really suits you!”
We left disappointed. Just then it was as if something flashed in front of me: on a little cube-shaped partition sat a mannequin, with almost my proportions, dressed in a suit that took my breath away. It was as if it had come down from heaven or out of my dreams. I ran over and stood in front of it, ready to defend the suit, which, strangely, the other old biddies still hadn't noticed. I felt the jacket – the fabric was thick and sturdy. When I reached under the skirt to feel it there too, the mannequin suddenly jumped up and started shouting:
“What on earth are you doing, comrade?!”
A sort of personal conclusion of mine:
My flaw of being absent-minded and looking, in other people's eyes, “sweetly dopey” has bothered me, but it has also brought me many friends.
It would hardly have been so_, had I had advantages to spare._
