Summer blunders: ‘In my best French I asked the camping father if he believed in dildos’

“My children, aged six and seven, made friends on the first day at the French nature campsite. The sun was shining, our tent was right on a lake, the crickets were singing and I felt butterflies in my stomach for my husband again. All the ingredients for a dream vacation.

The parents of the French camping friends were two tents away. Nice couple, and in no time we had agreed to let the children take turns getting bread in the morning for both families; so easy.

The contact didn’t go much further than that: my French isn’t what it used to be, and the French barely spoke English. The children were not bothered by the language barrier: they played for days on end in the water and communicated with hands and feet. Husband and I devoured one book after another and actually got together again. We enjoyed.

“Want a glass of wine?”

In the second week of our holiday, the French camping father came to see me. My husband was out shopping with the kids, and coincidentally, the campground dad’s wife was also out with her family at the time.

That afternoon they went to a cave been, he said. In his hand he held a bag-in-box with three liters of wine. Was I in the mood for a glass?

I always feel like a glass, but at the same time I was terrified. I speak quite a bit of French, but how was I going to keep a complete conversation going on my HAVO level?

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English with a twist is probably good too

Two glasses of wine later turned out to be much easier than I thought. The father amused himself at my fumbling, but we understood each other. Our families were nowhere to be seen. We took another one, and our conversation grew deeper and deeper. He talked about his ailing father, and how he hoped life would not end for the best man after his death. A little tipsy, I searched for the French translation of what I wanted to ask him: whether he believed in a god. ‘Croyez-vous and…’I stammered. What was that in French again, god? Maybe he’ll understand if I just give the English word a French accent, I hoped, and tried again: “Croyez-vous and… god?”

The camp father choked on his wine, jumped up from his chair, and blushed. Then he burst into an uncontrollable roar. I, in turn, also changed my color: what the hell had I said?

At that moment my husband and children came over and I told them what had happened. My husband quickly typed my question into Google. Then he, too, burst out laughing. I hadn’t asked the camping dad if in god – damn yes, dieu was the word – believed, but in dildos.”

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