Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The most children I ever had, via sneezing

So, in a lot of places when you sneeze once people respond with the word "health" (but in their language, of course). There are places that follow the second sneeze not with another "health," but with "money" or "luck." If you sneeze a third time it can be followed with a "love" or "marriage," but on the fourth you'll get "death." However, there are those that instead of saying death, follow up the marriage after the third sneeze by counting children out in the subsequent sneezes. Hence the fourth sneeze is your first child, fifth sneeze=2 children, sixth sneeze=3 children, and so forth. The counting of children makes a bit more sense because what if you sneeze 6 times? Is that triple death?
So to recap:
1st sneeze=HEALTH
2nd sneeze=MONEY/LUCK
3rd sneeze=MARRIAGE/LOVE
4th sneeze=1st CHILD/DEATH
5th sneeze=2nd CHILD
6th sneeze=3rd CHILD

I tell you this because the most children I ever got to was 19. Yes, I sneezed 22 times in 5 minutes. After I finished one sneeze, my stupid nose prepared to load another one. I strained a muscle in my stomach.

As allergy season hovers over us and we begin to sneeze with wild abandon, I think we should start this trend among Americans. No more bless yous or Gesundheits--unless you're ready to follow up that German with a Geld, Ehe, das erste Kind, das zweite Kind, das dritte Kind, etc.

And for those of you who are eagerly wondering about the Portuguese: saúde, dinheiro, casamento, primeira criança, segunda criança, terceira criança, etc.

7 comments:

Laurel said...

I find myself not reading your posts...just clicking on the read underlined words because they are funny. So I guess what I'm getting at is if you ever need to post something really important for me to see include a picture with it so it's red and underlined then I'll read it.

emily said...

i can't believe you linked to kinder eggs as pictures of german children. you should write a disclaimer with stuff like that. somebody is probably thinking that german children are hatched from eggs made of chocolate. that's just sick.

Vanessa Swenson said...

And now that I've fixed the 2 broken links and added a video link at the very end, I think you'll be very happy.

M said...

I love your blog...

I also love that you're going to have 19 children! HA! :-)

Myra Bybee said...

Yikes 22 sneezes! That is insane! I love this idea of saying health...etc. I am going to start doing this.

rantipoler said...

You should go with the Spanish version I made up. Whenever my students go beyond the traditional "salud, dinero, amor" trio, I go for "hijos, nietos, bisnietos, tataranietos . . ."

rantipoler said...

P.S. I'm gonna keep eating kinder eggs until I find a tiny person in lederhosen inside.