Vincent bought his cherries at the local outdoor market, and Vincent enjoyed eating his cherries all day long.
Until . . .
We went on an evening stroll, paseo, in the neighborhood with our friends who had come over for dinner that night. We didn’t get very far before Vincent tapped me on the shoulder and told me that he would have to return to the house. He had stomach cramps and was in quite a bit of pain. Too many cherries.
“How many did you eat?” I asked him.
“Too many,” he replied.
Too Many!
When I went home, I looked at the wooden crate of cherries that we had purchased that morning at the market down the street—two kilos worth. It was over 1/2 empty which meant that Vincent had consumed more than one kilo of cherries in the past 10 hours. No wonder he was doubled over with pain.
The next morning, he was relaying the story to Timothee and Robert.
“I was in so much pain. It felt like my stomach was going to rapture!” Vincent exclaimed.
Timothee started chuckling quietly, and then we all looked at each other with amusement.
Vincent proceeded to repeat the same word, “rapture,” multiple times in the telling of his story which made it even funnier for the rest of us.
Timothee pronounced the two words distinctly so his father could hear the difference.
“Rapture and rupture,” he enunciated.
Vincent said, “Actually, it’s true, I thought my stomach might rupture from the cherries, and that I might die and be raptured into heaven! My stomach would have to go with me!”
We started laughing so hard that we all thought our stomachs would “rapture”!
FYI, here are the definitions of rapture and rupture.
—The Cultural Story-Weaver
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THE LANGUAGE BARRIER AT THE DRIVE-THRU
I LEARNED MY SPANISH IN ZUMBA CLASS
LANGUAGE BLOOPER: THE SANDWICH ORDER WE WILL NEVER FORGET!
Bloopers—The Powerful Importance of Prepositions
