My Fairy Godmother

Before I left for Lagos to meet up with Ariel and Ashlee my landlord’s mom told me that she would be cleaning my room on Tuesday. I told her that I would be gone and that my bedroom door would be lock. She said that that wouldn’t be a problem since there are extra keys to everyone’s bedrooms in a drawer in the hallway. I considered explaining to her how keeping an extra copy of everyone’s bedroom key in the hallway completely defeated the purpose of locking our doors, but I decided not to.

When I opened my bedroom door upon my return on Wednesday night not only was my bed made with clean sheets and the floor swept, but there were a lot of unexpected surprises. For example, I keep my loose change in a pile on my desk. What had appeared when I returned? A coin dish filled with all my coins. I keep a mug in my room for drinking water. What had appeared when I returned? Not only was my mug still there, but an extra glass was on my desk, too and they were both placed on nice little saucers. I read a lot in my chair and somehow grandma knew that. What had appeared when I returned? A little table to set my books on and a reading light. I don’t have a drawer to keep my socks in so I just put them in a pile on a shelf. What had appeared when I returned? A shoebox covered in puppy wrapping paper filled with my socks. And not only that, but she lined my shelves with Lightning McQueen wrapping paper.

After finding all these new things that I hadn’t even realized I wanted, I had a thought. I had hung up a few shirts that needed to be ironed that I planned on ironing in the future, but hadn’t yet. I opened up my closet to find that they were all ironed. What a pleasant surprise. However, my pillow case was oddly absent and after a lot of searching I decided that it wasn’t in my room. It didn’t return until the following day. All of this was nice and all, but I was still a little weirded out that grandma had gone through so much of my stuff. Still, none of it is missing and my room has never been tidier. I came home tonight and there was a new dresser and a new bookshelf in my room. I can’t imagine what will turn up next.

On a completely different note, I’d like to explain my biggest Portuguese blunder so far. The problem with my learning Portuguese is that there are so many Portuguese words similar to Spanish words so when I don’t know a word I just throw in the Spanish word. It often works, but sometimes doesn’t. Last week I was explaining to Ana how I love to read in the parks around town, but that the pigeons there bother me while I read. The word for to bother in Spanish is molestar, but it can also mean to molest someone. However, in Portuguese, the verb molestar only has the sexual meaning while the verb irritar means to bother. So I told Ana that the pigeons were molesting me in the park and her confused expression informed me that I had done something wrong. I won’t make that mistake again.