You owe me a salad and a half!

I've been involved in several photography projects as of late.

As we all know, photography projects can produce strange situations. About a week ago, Rebecca and I were helping Sachi with a photography project in which pictures would be taken of visual puns (such as "a wok in the park," a "pan tree" and things like that). So of course, we had to carry pans and a wok through the forest and to the park. The park was by the elementary school where Sachi works. When we got there, Sachi saw to her dismay that the playground and the park were filled with students that would recognize her, as well as faculty members. She then proceeded to cringe in embarrassment that they might see her carrying pans. At one point, she tried to hide them behind me (I don't know how this was supposed to work, but what do I know?) Nobody noticed her, and we then took some pictures. But walking back, we forgot about people seeing us as we noticed a fallen-down sign.

"We have to take a picture of that," someone said.

"What pun could it be used for?"

"Seinfeld!" Rebecca realized, excitedly.

We were so caught up in taking pictures of the felled sign that we forgot that people might see us. Suddenly, some people in the playground recognized Sachi. Sachi was quite embarrassed indeed.

"What are you doing? Trying to drive the snakes out of Ireland?" someone said (it was Saint Patrick's Day).

"It's a photo project," Sachi said, defending her dignity.

Someone else, in the park then said, "What are you cooking, Sachi?" At that point, we just tried to get out of sight as quickly as possible.

Yesterday, I had the lovely opportunity to participate in Rebecca's (not my sister from the blog--the other Rebecca) photography project. In this one, I had to be part of an Asian arranged marriage. This in itself is strange enough. But standing in the cold wind without a jacket for minutes on end and bending my knees so that my head would be at the same height as Sachi's (my assigned bride) ALL IN PUBLIC VIEW was quite unpleasant. When it was over, Rebecca my sister and Rebecca the photographer and I went to see Anything Goes. Rebecca the photographer said something to Rebecca my sister about owing her money. I then joked to Rebecca the photographer that she owed me a salary for all of the unpleasant work that I did for her.

"What?" she asked, looking very strangely at me.

"I said you owe me a salary for the modeling work I did for you."

She squinted her eyes strangely at me again, but accepted what I was saying.

Soon she decided to borrow money from me so she could buy a ticket. I gave it to her, and she said, "Now I owe you a salad and a half."

"What?" I asked, now I being the confused one.

"You said I owed you a salad for the work you did for me."

"No, I said you owe me a salary."

"Oh."

Salad, salary...what's the difference? Both words were derived from the same origin, after all!

-Philip