I’m having trouble sleeping tonight, not a good thing. I passed out during the Cowboy game (How ‘bout dem boys!) and was woken up by a phone call. About an hour ago, I’m on the mac working and I’m falling asleep, can’t even keep my eyes open so I decide to call it a night. I tossed and turned for a good hour and just decided I couldn’t sleep. I think I’ve officially messed up my sleep schedule. Dang it, not cool!

I decided to get online and read some blogs since I’m very behind. One of my favorite bloggers is Joel, who cracks me up every single time. Great writer, funny stories, highly recommend him! I was reading his last entry when it reminded me of this story of when I first started working at the studio.

My co-worker P, is from Peru. She has a very thick accent and knows English very well. Since she’s from Peru, she has a different accent and uses different words then I would use, being that I learned from Mexican parents. Sometimes in the middle of a conversation she’ll say something and I’m at a complete loss as to what she meant because she uses a word I’ve never heard of. When I first started working there, this one day out of the blue she was angry at the retoucher. We outsource and he’s out of state, so when she got off the phone with him she looks at me and says, “¡AYE CLAUDIA! ¡Tengo cólera! ¡CÓLERA!”

I’m there kind like, “Dude that sucks.” But left it alone. I really had never heard the word cólera, but i just figured she was angry. A couple of weeks after that I was talking to my friend Imelda and I was mad about something and tell her, ¡Tengo cólera!, and she says, “What? You got chorro?!” Which means diarrhea. My response was something like, “Ewe, no, I’m mad is what I meant.” We laughed and I shrugged it off.

Days later I’m in the office and P says it again, ¡Tengo cólera! I suggest she see a doctor and get that looked at because it’s been like 3 weeks now! I mean seriously, right? Wouldn’t you? She looked at me like I was nuts and said that Americans are crazy, we go to the doctor for anything. I responded and said, that maybe Peruvians were use to having diarrhea for 3 weeks in a row, but that’s not how we roll over here. She started laughing really hard and said, “I don’t have diarrhea.” I said, “Then why do you keep saying you do?” She’s like, “I don’t say that!”

Yes you do P! You’re all “¡Tengo cólera! ¡Tengo cólera! ¡Tengo cólera!”

After she stopped laughing some more, she informs me it means she’s mad not that she has diarrhea.

So apparently Imelda doesn’t know it all, as she claims. Now it’s an inside joke for P and me. Every now and then after she comes back from a restroom break I ask her if she has cólera.