My partner Will, who was born and raised in Ontario, is quite enthusiastic about the off-beat culture of this new ‘country’ we’ve come to inhabit. He’s taken to the traditions, the music and the way of life like a duck in a drought takes to water. But sometimes the language gets the better of him, and sometimes the resulting confusion gets the better of us both.
Yesterday, for example, Will rang up to introduce himself to a neighbour from whom we hoped to purchase some hay bales to skirt our cabin for the winter. Judging by his side of the conversation, the negotiations seemed to be going well.
“Oh, that’s perfect then…What’s a good time for you?…Er, okay, that’s fine, we’ll drop by tomorrow around then.”
He rang off to announce triumphantly that he had secured the hay at the most reasonable price of $1.00 per bale and that we were off to pick it up the next evening.
Now, it seemed a bit odd that the job was scheduled for the evening. Unlike the city, there are no street lights, and around here work is done during the daylight hours. But we just supposed that the fellow had other business during the day, and if we had to work in darkness, we would somehow deal with it.
But it nagged at me. It just didn’t seem right somehow. This was simply not the way of things here. Nonetheless, the next evening we set off in the pitch darkness to pick up our hay. On the way there I was struck by a sudden thought.
“So tell me,” I said, “what exactly did this guy say to you on the phone? Did he actually use the word ‘evening’?
“Yes,” says Will, “He said to come tonight.”
“But did he say ‘evening’?
“Well, he said to come by after dinner.”
I started to laugh. Here in Newfoundland they do not eat lunch and dinner, they eat dinner and supper. We were on our way to pick up hay from a fellow who had been expecting us to show up in the afternoon.
Since we were already on the road, we continued on to the farm, but with some trepidation at meeting this stranger who had wasted precious daylight hours waiting around for us to show.
We needn’t have worried. Newfoundlanders are a laid-back lot who mightily appreciate a good laugh. In fact, when we explained how the misunderstanding had come about, our newfound neighbour was so greatly amused that he dropped the price of the hay to fifty cents a bale.
We’ll be picking them up tomorrow…after dinner.