Peng Peng's Episodes

Since Thanksgiving is approaching(Nov. 26) , it has never been a better time for this once-a-year event — to express my deep apologies to two victims of my junk stories, my dear husband shao po and his buddy E. If men can be rated like restaurants and movies, these two men should deserve five stars (*****)(FYI, fortunately, one of them is still available). Possibly being afraid of showing up in my next story, both of them are surprisingly well behaved these days (That is why you have not gotten any joke since Miata 3.—I feel a little bored but shouldn’t complain. For the first time, I have experienced “the pen is mightier than the sword", and the keyboard is mightier than the pen.

As for myself, a person having been lucky for all her life and still enjoying teasing people, really deserves to go to hell. But, If I ever make you laugh in front of the monitor, probably I deserve a better hell (oh no, I will be totally disappointed to learn that, even in hell, there is a hierarchy. )

Besides, it takes me a while to digest the response from readers. A German lady, who writes similar jokes about her husband, always expects my next episode in her email box. She told me “you are the first Asian woman I met who dares to make jokes about her husband." Well, how should I put it? —-I feel extremely lucky to be born in Taiwan, a democratic country, where women can tease their husbands without being executed.

As one of the readers, you might be curious about how people interpret my junk stories. Since I have decided hell will be my destination ( not even a better hell), I could not care less about teasing some of my readers before my next supply of husband joke has arrived. (Shao po and E, you guys can enjoy this episode without any worry. )

Seeing those five glowing stars I give my husband and E, you might be skeptical that my man rating system is just another generous one as those in San Jose Mercury (they never rate a restaurant under 3 stars. you can even be disappointed by those four star restaurants on the list.) You will learn it is NOT the case after my introducing these two gentlemen, L (**) and W (**1/2). They are two of my best friends but I really have hard time giving them more than 3 stars (FYI, unfortunately, they are also STILL available).

I had been working with L in a theater troop,Yu Mi Ten, involving with a couple of play productions, one year before I came to USA. Being paranoid is one of L’s expertise. After reading my “the Luckiest Man", “Miata 1″ and “Miata 2″, he suddenly “realized" my marriage with shao po reaches the crisis (I really don’t know how he did it, but he certainly has this kind of extraordinary talent.) Without a second thought, he decided to consult Q, the director of the troop and now a mother of 2-year-old girl, and hope to confirm his worry with this married woman (I did not send Q these jokes bcs a mom will never have time for emails). L gave her a brief summary of my stories (his brief version might be more than what I wrote) and Q, using her married woman instinct, concluded that any this kind of disagreement or complaint will end up a broken marriage.

Still, they want to reconfirm their thoughts with Q’s mom, Q1, who cooked me every delicious meal during the half year I stayed with her daughter ,and to me, she is like my second mom. Please keep in mind that Q is a DIRECTOR. You can never underestimate her ability of dramatizing stories. Here is the conclusion they, one paranoid single male and two married females, come up with— Peng Peng is mistreated and Shao Po changes. They are ready to give me their full, strong, uncompromising support if I ever have to battle with shao po and his buddy.—-I know they mean it. Moreover, Q and Q1 suggested the best solution for all these troubles is to HAVE A BABY. ( what kind of logic it is? I sincerely hope not all of us were born to rescue our parent’s marriages.)

With this sad conclusion, L called W, my childhood friend who enjoyed every joke I wrote until the very moment he picked up the phone. W was shock to learn this “behind-the-scene" story and wrote me a long long letter saying how ignorant he is and sorry for not realizing I am undergoing such a trauma. He should have “read between the lines". He even pointed out some trivial daily events I wrote him to support their perfect conclusion. ———-Their “story" certainly beats mine. None of my jokes can make me laugh to death like this. I never know my friends can be so creative in terms of spreading rumors. For the moment, all I can think of is “thanks God they did not call my parents." (They did that after feeling being “fooled" by me and complained to my parents.)

I always consider my husband a not-very-smart man but now I realize he is definitely above average. In order to prevent further misunderstanding like this, I invented * system for L and W. They should not take my email serious unless I put * sign behind the subject.

* * * * * We have great time with our miata. She got first 1000 mile within a week (according to shao po and E, the gender for cars is female. I guess it makes a lot of sense.) We probably spent more time in this cute little car than in our cottage for the first week. Getting used to a sporty car, shao po would unavoidably make disrespectful comments on our old, faithful Altima, while he occasionally “has to" use her and finds disappointed about her performance: “If this is Miata,———“. —– I was very worrying that our Altima would breakdown on the road if she cannot take this kind of comment anymore.

I like to end this Thanksgiving episode with a paragraph from W’s email sent to me after we got our miata and he realized the whole thing is really a joke. For this, I rate him 1/2 star more than L. The following is the faithful translation from Chinese text.

~Dear Peng-peng: It seems to me that Shao Po will go for anything he loves without considering the consequences (just like he marries you). Therefore, you can really foresee how you will be treated by the way he treats his cars. As I can recall, he was crazily in love with his Altima four years ago, wasn’t he? ~

W, thank you. You are really my best friend. Happy Thanksgiving, my dear friends.

peng peng