Pardon?

So I’m sitting in my kitchen after dinner, reading the morning newspaper and sipping on a bottle of water. (I know, living on the edge, aren’t I?). I’m reading the comics page very closely, because that’s the only really interesting part of the morning paper. Then I jump out of my skin because there is a knock at my back window.

My back window. Yes. Someone has come into my little back yard and is knocking at my back window. Nobody ever does that – except Porsche Guy all summer long, and that one time the Unbook Club gals all arrived at once, and my mom at Easter because it was raining and she didn’t feel like going around to the front door, or DD’s friend who actually thought that he was at the front of our house the first time he came over – okay, maybe not “nobody” exactly. But the fact remains that most people do come around to the actual front door and ring the doorbell. It’s not that far: just down the driveway and a quick turn to the right and up a few stairs. It takes about a minute, tops, from the street.

Anyway, after I put my skin back on, I glance up and see a really large hairy man with aviator sunglasses peering in my patio door. I cautiously slide the patio door open about two centimetres and look at him blankly.

The really large hairy man with aviator sunglasses says something, and so help me, I do not understand a single syllable. I do not recognize anything he utters as a known language. It is a bunch of sounds to me.

“Sorry?” I say questioningly.

The really large hairy man with aviator sunglasses says something else (I think. Maybe he just repeats himself. I can’t tell.), and all I get out of it was that he appears to be looking for somebody. Somebody else who also doesn’t speak any recognizable language.

“No,” I say regretfully, shaking my head. I really haven’t a clue what I am just refusing.

The really large hairy man with aviator sunglasses then, wonder of wonders, throws a few words of English at me, along with a bunch more sounds that I still cannot place as a language. I understand only “Do you know?” and “Drive a big – a big – Ford Explorer” and “South African”.

“Ah!” I say, comprehension finally dawning – sort of. “Next door!” I gesture towards the home of the next-door neighbours whom I don’t like, the noisy ones with the birds and the barbecue and the four kids.

The really large hairy man with aviator sunglasses does not say another word to me in any language, but turns and waddles down the walk to the back gate. He passes through and heads into the neighbours’ backyard. Someone comes out of their house and they all joyously make noises in what I now realize is Afrikaans.

It seems that I am not as good at recognizing languages as I thought I was. And I should have recognized that accent and those sounds as Afrikaans, since the family of one of DD’s good friends speaks the language, and we also lived next door to another South African family for a long time when DD was younger. It’s not like I have never been exposed to Afrikaans before!

But I do recognize rudeness. Especially in my own backyard. The really large hairy man with aviator sunglasses never even said thank you.