Bullet!

When was the last time you heard and/or laughed at a verbal grammatical error? I remember a time in the not-too-distant past when I could not let one slide without saying "Tiaun!", "Bend down for the ahhhh-rowww!" or one of any number of colorful colloquialisms designed to inform nearby listeners that the speaker supposedly could not speak English. I still remember, very vividly, our senior Bible class at Hillcrest about Islam, which was taught by guest lecturer Mallam Musa, a recent Christian convert. For one full week, the entire class was entertained by this cheerfully ignorant man who insisted on speaking this language that he had clearly not fully grasped. He continually and consistently gave us classics like "Mohammed was in danger. When he heard they were coming to kill him, he flied to Medina!" and "He was asleep on the mountain when just of a sudden...." I personally couldn't understand why he chose to lay emphasis on the arrows themselves when he spoke, but it made for great comedy. For the first time in Bible class history, every last one of us looked forward to the end of the day when we could sit in front of him and attend his free show, Mallam Musa ostensibly pleased by our enthusiasm but clearly wondering why we were rolling on the floor in stitches instead of sitting quietly in our seats.

I've since changed my mind about the importance of speaking perfect English, particulary if it's not your first language, but that doesn't make an arrow any less hilarious when I hear a good one.

Clearly, I'm not alone; there's a group on Facebook whose sole purpose is to serve simple folks like me gut-wrenching laughter borne of reading long-forgotten and freshly-shot bullets. I was checking it out today (instead of doing the work that I left my house and came to the library to do), and saw this one that I absolutely cannot stop laughing at:

"See economic growt. America did it, Japan did it, China did it...why can't we did it?" - OBJ

Una helep me o! I don't know whether the actual bullet is funny, or whether it's funny because na Baba talk am, but I'm almost crying, envisioning the seriousness with which he undoubtedly said it and wondering whether anyone was tempted to shout "Bullet!" during his speech. Whichever it is, I now have an insatiable desire for more arrows with which to pierce my funny bone. So now I'm calling all Belly readers: give me your best shots!