land of dum dums

I took a picture of this cheese at the place I always go to for lunch. For those of you who can’t see the image above, it says, “GOODA REDUCED FAT” on its label. As if sucking the fat out of her wasn’t bad enough, they then called her “GOODA?” Is that like “Krab Meat”? Are they trying to tell me that I'm not actually eating cheese, rather, processed FISH?

Wanting to give the manufacturers of “GOODA REDUCED FAT” cheese the benefit of the doubt, I did a quick Google search. Sure enough, I got a “DID YOU MEAN GOUDA (ya dumbnut)?” (the “ya dumbnut” is editorialized, but you know that’s what the Google is thinking).

Of COURSE I meant GOUDA!

This reminds me of an encounter I had with a travel agent in 2005. I was booking an annoyingly elaborate trip that had me stopping over in all sorts of places. For reasons still unknown to me, flying out of San Diego and into Palma, Mallorca proved too difficult for the itty bitty red-hatted gnomes working behind the scenes at Travelocity so they asked me to call a booking agent and speak to a real live person.

Real Live Person: “This is Bernice. I see that you’re trying to get from San Diego (also known as whale’s vagina (quote from Anchorman (she didn’t really say that))) to Mall Orca.”

Me: “ummmm. Right. It’s actually pronounced “Ma YORKA”, unless you’re South American, then you’re more likely to pronounce it with a slight “J” sound. Like this: “Ma chorka.” But I digress. Yes, Bernice. I’m trying to get to Mallorca.”*

Bernice: “well, it looks like you can get there if you don’t mind a stopover in Pragway.”

Me: “Pragway?"

Bernice: “or maybe it’s pronounced, “Pra-goo.”

Sigh.

PRAGUE is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included Praga mater urbium/Praha matka měst ("Prague – Mother of Cities") in Latin/Czech, Stověžatá Praha ("City of a Hundred Spires") in Czech or Zlaté město/Goldene Stadt ("Golden City") in Czech/German, and PraGOO, if you’re a Travelocity travel agent.

*i didn't really say this, but i definitely thought it.