My baby cousin, whom I still insist on calling baby despite her being a bit too overage to be called such, is a treasure trove of amusing stories. This Christmas season particularly, she has this story to share with us all.
And this is how it goes...
(NOTE: Names were changed to protect the privacy of these people. As for the conversation itself, I may have 'bent' a few of my lines, but in BC's case, none of her lines have been omitted or altered in any way. Explanatory notes and comments are enclosed in parentheses.)
Baby Cousin/BC comes into my room, candy in her hand. She unwraps the candy, bites off half of it, smiles, then stuffs the other half into my mouth. (I know, sweet.) She then grabs my ipod, without permission (still sweet huh?), and starts listening to some annoying, grossly overplayed song. Wanting to start small talk, I start with this.
ME: Aunt M is pregnant. Kaye (Aunt M's daughter) is going to have a baby sister/brother.
BC (Baby Cousin): So is her tummy big now?
ME: *unsure* Not yet, it's still too early, I think. But her tummy's eventually going to get bigger as the baby grows.
BC: You know, our teacher told us a story about a pregnant woman, Anna. An angel gets Anna pregnant, and Anna tells the angel, "But I don't have a husband!" So the angel visits Joseph in a dream and tells him that he must marry Anna.
ME: Wait, shouldn't it be Mary, not Anna?
BC: ...
BC: So Joseph marries Anna. Anna's tummy gets really big, so they decide to walk around *demonstrates with the use of her fingers* and look for a place to stay. They find an inn but the owner tells them there's no room for them anymore because the inn was full of boys and girls. (Those were her exact words.)
ME: Okay...
BC: So then the owner tells them, "Rather than have her give birth on the streets, (again, her exact words) why don't you just stay at the farm? (She meant 'stable', but she didn't know what stable was in the vernacular. I don't know either.) So there they went, to the house of the horses and elephants, and Anna gave birth there.
ME: ...um, elephants?
BC: What?
ME: What if the elephant steps on the baby?
BC: The elephant is in a cage, ano ka ba! ('Ano ka ba' is a local expression that's very difficult to translate so I won't even try, but in this case it means 'you dummy'. And yes, that's how sharp my cousin's tongue is.) So there's no way he can step on the baby.
ME: Okay.
So then I, not quite losing hope just yet, continued to prod her on.
ME: So what was the name of the baby?
BC: *deadpan* Barbie.
At this point, I couldn't hold myself back anymore - I exploded in ruptures of delight: my cousin was a genius! So I hugged her, told her of how much honor she just gave our family with that brilliant answer of hers. But then she cut me off with...
BC: Oh! Now I remember, it wasn't Barbie. (How that line broke my heart!) It was Joseph. The baby was named after his father because they couldn't think of any other name.
Then she goes on about how she voted for the sun in a duel between the sun and the clouds. Little did she know, somewhere up there, someone is pissed off their pants.
