It's time for bikinis, long aperitifs and evenings out with friends.
Holidays, the perfect opportunity for relaxation, for launching jokes, for jabs dipped in seawater, for latent reproaches, for cold wars, and for bitter comments held back all year.
Because the vacations are all about letting loose and saying out loud what we've been holding back for 11 months. It's about disguising as praise the mockery that's been stuck behind our lips since the autumn, it's about hiding behind the third glass to dare criticize the painful attitude of our spouse, the disastrous attitude of our friends, the appalling attitude of our children, and what can I say about our parents!
Pendant l’été, les langues se délient. Et s’il est plaisant de vanner à tout va, il est plus désagréable de subir les remarques à jet continu de Greg, qui se croit drôle de chambrer :
- la petite cousine, certes un peu geignarde
- la belle-mère, un chouia pot-de colle
- l’amoureux rougeaud de la plage... tout au long de la journée.
Ok, Greg, c’était drôle 5 minutes. Mais là, c'est bon.
Un exemple de ce que vous risquez de vous prendre cet été, de la part de Greg quand il est en forme ?
- Oh, she's been enjoying cassoulet all winter. She has goose confit thighs.
- Bikinis don't suit everyone, do they... eh?
- So you can bitch all you want at home, but here we live in a community. Next year you'll do what you do the rest of the year - you'll stay on your own.
- Even for vacation romances, boys are demanding, you know?
- You have one drink and you can be made to say anything.
- I thought your temper was on vacation too.
No, Greg won't spoil your vacation. At first, the others giggled too when he poked the neighborhood. Now he's just getting annoying.
You wake up every day from your nap in the sun with a diabolical plan: to nail him.
Unfortunately, it's out of your reach, you might think.
You're shy, introverted, unimaginative, or worse, you're just nice: you don't want to hurt people's feelings and jeopardize the group's atmosphere.
What a tug-of-war!
At night, when you think you're a superhero and no one's around to doubt your powers, you stick his head in the toilet bowl for a remark about the salad not being fresh. You throw him off a cliff for yet another dig about your abs. But when reality brings you face to face with the serial joker, your muscles give out and you're left with nothing but your breath to sigh in irritation.
Un petit coup de main, spécial Takattak ?
Pirouette, self-mockery, insolence, compliments and truth - these are your weapons for the days ahead.
- No wonder your colleagues avoid you, you're really boring.
- And again, you didn't see me until morning coffee (Self-deprecation)
- Well, it looks like cooking isn't your strong suit
- You're a real cordon bleu. Could you show us your talents tomorrow? (Compliment)
- Last year's swimsuit is now a little too tight.
– Riposte : J’essaie de te ressembler, pour ne pas que tu complexes. Mais c’est pas gagné. Encore quelques kilos. (Insolence)
- In fact, you have no sense of initiative, you let yourself be carried along by others.
- Yes, you see, that's why I eat light. (Pirouette)
- Oh dear, when you can't spread your sunscreen properly, you look like a lobster.
- And lobsters hurt like hell (Truth).
Shall we continue and complicate things?
- You can't even keep track of the GPS coordinates
- I'm the pickle of orientation. (Self-mockery and Alexandria)
- Oh come on, just because you're old doesn't mean you can't wear a swimsuit!
- Age is to swimwear what delicacy is to idiots. Eddy Barclay (Fake quote and Insolence)
- Can you shake your stuff without getting sand all over me?
– Riposte : Quelques grains de sable
On your beautiful lying body
Youth regained
(Haïku and Pirouette)
- Ah! Your face when you get out of the water!
– Riposte : Méfiez-vous de la tronche qui sort.
(Self-deprecation and False proverb)
- You've never actually learned swimming?
– Riposte : Et je le regrette. (Vérité et Rime)
Nul besoin d’être cruel pour faire taire un piqueur virulent.
Un peu d’humour, beaucoup de maitrise de ses émotions, une grosse respiration, aucune justification, et vos vacances seront sauvées.
Let's hope: Greg will be calmed down.
* My apologies to all the charming, tolerant, non-prickly Gregs who are going to be mocked all summer by their intimate enemies because of this article. May they respond with a light-hearted pirouette, the result of which I beg them to let me know.
Geneviève
Don't let your lack of repartee ruin your vacations