At the garment factory today, they were handing out men's shirts as parting gifts. I didn't queue up, as they seemed likely to be a tad voluminous, but at the end they had one left over: a size 45 shirt of rather bold multicolored stripes. One of the men we'd been interviewing rushed up and pressed it upon me. I tried to explain that even I did not wear a men's XXL--no, not even in Vietnamese sizes.
"No, no, for your husband!" he said.
Again, I tried to demur.
"For him," he said firmly. "Your husband is very tall. VERY tall. He can wear."
It seemed heartless to refuse someone who had tapped so directly into my mother's fantasy life.
You are in Vietnam with your mother? So is my sister with our mother right now! Look out for another pair of daughter/mother speaking a mix of German/English/Slavic while discussing relationship problems on sightseeing tours in Vietnam!
Hugo,..no, no, her mother is not in Vietnam. But like every mother, their thought patterns and attempts at mind control and life manipulation follow you wherever you go.
"It seemed heartless to refuse someone who had tapped so directly into my mother's fantasy life."
Life imitates the "Kathy" comic strip.
Both Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein could fit into that shirt at the same time.