While I was in Hungary, dad took to himself to return to vojska the equipment of mostly airforce colors that I got a couple of years ago (and never had to use it, luckily, as all of it was two sizes short). He ended up being driven all the way to Batajnica or some such place, and having to manage for transportation home, typical army bullshit. In a way, I'm glad they're pretty much nobodies nowadays (even though they got there for all the wrong reasons).
I even got a stamp as if I was on an official reserve duty for one day. An aliby, eh?
I think this was the time (i.e. the following thursday) when I remembered to buy a trashcan for the kitchen, and african violets in a pot. The trashcan, BTW, served until 2016 or 2018 (with a long break in between). Well I found it somewhere near a flowershop, and then it triggered my memory. While I was waiting for the girl to serve another customer, I tried to remember what was the hungarian word for violet... Just when I almost remembered it, someone from behind called the girl "Ibolya! Egy kitcsit, kérem...". She replied and I was fazed out - ibolya is the word, and the girl's name is actually Violet... ahem, the coincidence was too much, and I was trying to make a pun and at the same time NOT to make a pun... So in like twenty seconds, when it was my turn, I barely had the wits to find my tongue. But I managed just fine, nobody noticed how confused I got.
Момци у фирми су, како ми се чини, гледали у нас као у неко чудо. Оно, знали смо многе форе које они нису, знали смо и језик више, а изгледали смо у најмању руку чудно, тројица брадоња, од чега двојица са дужом косом, а све породични људи. Од тројице са истим именом (јер мора име из календара, бар код католика, па је и врло вероватно да буде тако) један је био програмер и баш доста времена проводио са нама. Доживео је малтене отворени прело мозга кад смо му испричали најбољи безвезни виц, који гласи:
The guys in the office were, it seemed, looking at us as if some miracle. Truth be said, we knew many tricks that they didn't, spoke an extra language, and did look at least weird, three guys with beards, of which two with longer hairs, while being all family guys. Of the three guys of the same name (because the names are picked from the calendar, at least for catholics, so such coincidences are very likely) one was a programmer and spent quite a lot of time with us. He underwent almost an open brain fracture when we told him the best surreal joke, as follows
Why is a train going faster at night then on the rails?
Because it's colder in winter than outside.
Three days later he brought a response: a nihilist sadist pig meets the good fairy in a forest, and is awarded three wishes, and the first wish it wants is „drop dead!“. Not too bad, but a bit of a stretch.
He wasn't stupid, far from it, he wasn't far behind us (except we wrote all of this and he still didn't), and was really trying hard to be a frajer and spill the stuff like we did. I think we had an admirer.
In Hungary, there was a recent custom of answering a phone call with " *** нема ги падеж last name here овди *** vagyok" (... I am). His last name was Nagy (Big), and he had a lot of fun answering calls with "I am big"... because he was pretty much the shortest guy in the office. Not by much, just enough to be as tall as Ula.