I’m heading up to Cairns tonight to serve as best man at the wedding of the fella who was best man at mine in 2006. Robbie was my flatmate back in the late 90s when we maintained a filthy bachelor hovel with an awesome party backyard in the inner west of Sydney. We both went to the UK together in 2000; I came home in 2002 having met McBec, and Robbie came home in 2004 having met his bride-to-be. We’ve lived in different cities since 2001 but have remained close friends and have continued to have very excellent adventures together. In honour of Robbie’s big day (Saturday) I’d like to share with you one of the stories that have become Robbie folklore.

Robbie, Joey and The Editor are burdened with atrocious fashion sense c. 2000. Robbie always has his shirt unbuttoned or off. Always.

We were staying in a Turkish pension by the beach with our American travel companion, Joey. It was about 1pm and a huge morning of backgammon, tea and reading had worked us up some massive appetites. We asked the lovely Turkish girl who worked there if we could order some of the beautiful sandwiches that were the house specialty, and she replied, in broken English, that it would be no problem. We thanked her with one of only six Turkish words we knew, but then Robbie wanted to say more.

“Have you got any mayonnaise?” he asked.

“Ma-yo-ni… What is this mayoni?” asked the bemused employee.

“Um, mayonnaise,” clarified Robbie gruffly.

Joey and I stepped in and tried to describe mayonnaise using simple English words.

“It’s like, um, white, creamy, eggy…”

“You know, mayonnaise,” interjected Robbie a little louder than speaking volume and with an emphasis on the word.

“…in a jar, white, tangy,” we continued.

“Mayonnaise,” repeated Robbie, louder.

“It’s creamy. And white.” we mumbled as we ran out of adjectives.

“MAYONNAISE!” exclaimed a terribly frustrated Robbie, who just wanted some freakin’ mayo, almost screaming.

And as if by magic, Robbie’s culturally insensitive and rather insulting method of communication worked! The (quite shocked) girl went out the back and put mayonnaise on Robbie’s sandwich. So whenever for the rest of our travels we encountered a language difficulty Joey and I would turn to Robbie and shout “MAYONNAISE!” at him, causing him to turn red and get all sheepish at the embarrassment of his moment of stupidity. Even later when I was travelling with McBec or other people I would suddenly exclaim “MAYONNAISE!” at the top of my voice for what seemed to them to be no apparent reason.

I encourage you to do the same when you’re next overseas. Do it for Robbie.

And as a gift from me to you, GrodsReader, I will leave this photo for you to mercilessly caption while I’m away. I shudder to think what will await me on Monday.

UPDATE: Nevernude Surname has set up an official caption competition post for your amusing caption entries.