Cucaracha

It's with great sadness and some amount of embarrassment to inform you that I have roaches. Well, not in my house. But in my car! My new, lovely wonderful car.

Ugh, how does this happen?

You have to realise that cockroaches are not a British thing. Our climate is too cold for them to proliferate, so when I emigrated here, it was a complete culture shock. That's not even counting the godzilla roaches Floridians cheerily call, "Palmetto bugs". I'm convinced those have it out for me, because the moment they see me, they fly right at me. Grrr.

My car doesn't have that variety, but I did find two baby roaches, no bigger than the head of a pin inside my car today.

Fortunately, I was at a drive-thru' and not riding around, else the Miami Horrible's headline might've read, "Woman motorist causes accident on the 'wrong side of road'. Blames roach", which on top of everything, would make me sound like a crazy pot-smoking hippie-dippy chick.

Anyway, so I went to Publix and got myself one of those Roach Motels. Actually, they don't call them that anymore. They're "Guest Worker Houses" these days. On aisle 9.

The problem is there are so many to choose from: Scented, Unscented, Country Apple, Mimosa, Febreze Candle, Booty Call, and one very lovely smelling one called simply, Nutsack.

What did catch my eye was that the packaging was in both English and Spanish. Maybe I'm a little obtuse, because though I knew instructions on some packaging were in both languages, I hadn't realised that the blurbs in front were translated, too.

What are they trying to infer? That Campbell Soup eaters do not need billingual help, but that Hispanics are dirty, filthy beasts who have roaches in their houses? Humph.

I was just about to choose one when I read something which totally put me off the purchase. A Spanish grammatical mistake.

"Ataca el Nido Y Mata Las Huevos"

Las Huevos???

Not being a native Spanish speaker or anything, I appeal to José, Ernie and others to correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe it's LOS Huevos. And please stop snickering. I know, it also means "balls". In German too!

I finally left the supermarket with my real purchase in hand, only to arrive home and open it at last just now. It didn't catch my eye in the aisle, and though it's not a grammatical mistake, it just seems...off.

Check it out.



Las mascotas???

Since when does "pet" translate as a mascot in Spanish? That's some weird Mexican slang stuff right there.

Even if it does mean that in Cuban, Nicaraguan, Venezuelan, Argentinian etc. etc. Spanish, this brings to mind the pitfalls of translating the various Spanish usages, all in the name of political correctness. You're bound to startle or amuse one Spanish speaker, by using a word they wouldn't use in the name of all Spanish speakers.

I guess that's why they demurred from using the word "bichos" which for Cubans means animals (or indeed pets, I do believe), but it would cause a riot of protest from Puerto Ricans. You don't want to know. Hee.

Well, I'm off to go downstairs and scatter those bait traps around. I'll be damned if those cucas will get the better of me or my fresh ride.

Que rayos hacen en mi carro!

IN THE COMMENTS: José comes to the linguistic rescue by agreeing it's los not las huevos. What, they couldn't afford (1) a native Spanish translator (2) a proofreader??

And ElCubanitoKC asks incredulously:

You have bichos in your car, and you are trying to kill los huevos??

Ay, Dios mío!

Don't mess with me, brode!