When your pinch pinches you….

I am going to narrate two, true stories about ‘pinches’.

The first one happened last week. I was out shopping, and in one of the roadside shops, I saw my friend. Her back was turned away from me.  She is a very dear friend, and I was so happy to see her, and so what did I do?

I quietly pinched her arm and shouted a loud greeting. Imagine my shock when she turned around and I realized that it was someone else.

The lady who turned around was red in  the face (from the friendly pinch, me thinks). I apologised profusely, and repeatedly. To say that I was mortified is an understatement.

The second incident was narrated to me by a friend.  My friend and her daughter were in the mall. My friend’s daughter, 7 years old, was being a real brat and throwing a tantrum in the mall; a tantrum that involved some full throated crying and stomping of feet.

My friend was at her wits’ end. She issued many threats. In the end she said in her mother tongue, “I am going to pinch you if you don’t behave.”

In our mother tongue the word for pinch is pronounced as ‘killu” . So my friend’s daughter bawled loudly and said in a mixture of English and her mother tongue, “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me…”!

My friend turned red with embarrassment as people looked at her strangely.

Two stories that pinched!