Been thinking about this page for a while and while sorting my mail came across one of my seasonal favorites, which is where we'll start.

12 Cajun Days of Christmas

Day 1 

Dear Emile,
Thanks for da bird in the Pear tree.  I fixed it las night with dirty rice an it was delicious.  I doan tink the Pear tree would grow in de swamp, so I swap it for a Satsuma.

Dear Emile,
Your letter said you sent 2 turtle dove, but all I got was 2 scrawny pigeon.  Anyway, I mixed them with andouille and made some gumbo out of dem.

Dear Emile,
Why doan you sen me some crawfish?  I'm tired of eating dem darned bird.  I gave two of those prissy French chicken to Mrs. Fontenot over at Grand Chenier, and fed the tird one to my dog, Phideaux.  Mrs. Fontenot needed some sparring partner for her fighting rooster.

Day 4

Dear Emile,
Mon Dieux!  I tole you no more of dem bird.  Deez four, what you call "calling bird" wuz so noisy you could hear dem all da' way to Lafayette.  I used they neck for my crab trap, and fed the rest of dem to the gators.

Day 5

Dear Emile,
You finally sent something useful.  I liked dem golden ring, me.  I hocked dem at da' pawn shop in Sulphur and got enough money to fix the shaft on my shrimp boat, and to buy a round for da boys at the Raisin' Cane Lounge.  Merci Beaucoup!

Day 6

Dear Emile,
Couchon!  Back to da bird, you coonass turkey!  Poor egg sucking Phideaux is scared to death ah dem six goose.  He try to eat they egg and they pecked the heck out ah his snout.  Dem goose are damm good at eating cockroach around da' house, though.  I may stuff one ah dem goose with erster dressing to serve him on Christmas Day.

Day 7

Dear Emile,
I'm gonna wring your fool neck next time I see you.  Ole Boudreaux, da mailman, he ready to kill you, too.  The crap from all dem bird is stinkin up his mailboat.  He afraid someone will slip on dat stuff and gonna sue him.  I let dem seven swan loose to swim on da bayou and some stupid duck hunter from Mississippi done blasted dem out da water.  Talk to you tomorrow.

Day 8 

Dear Emile,
Poor ole Boudreaux had to make 3 trip on his mailboat to deliver dem 8 maids-a-milking & dere cow.  One of dem cow got spooked by da alligator and almost tipped over da boat.  I doan like dem shiftless maid, me.  I told dem to get to work gutting fish and sweeping my shack -- but dey say it wasn't in their contract.  They probably tink they too good to skin all dem nutria I caught las night.

Day 9

Dear Emile,
What you trying to do?  Boudreaux had to borrow da Cameron Ferry to carry these jumping twit you call lords-a-leaping across da bayou.  As soon as dey got here dey wanted a tea break and crumpets.  I doan know what dat means but I says, "Well la di da.  You get Chicory coffee or nuthin."  Mon Dieux, Emile, what I'm gonna feed all these bozo?  They too snooty for fried nutria, and da cow ate up all my turnip green.

Day 10

Dear Emile,
You got to be out of you mind.  If da mailman don't kill you, I will.  Today he deliver 10 half nekkid floozies from Bourbon Street.  Dey said they be ladies dancing" but they doan act like ladies in front of dem Limey sailing boy.  Dey almost left after one of them got bit by a water moccasin over by my out- house.  I had to butcher 2 cows to feed toute le monde and get toilet paper rolls.  The Sears catalog wasn't good enough for dem hoity toity lords.  Talk at you tomorrow.

Day 11

Dear Emile,
Where Y'at?  Cherio and pip pip.  You 11 Pipers Piping arrive today from the House of Blues, second lining as dey got off da boat.  We fixed stuffed goose and beef jumbalaya, finished da whiskey, and we're having a fais-do-do.  Da' new mailman drank a bottle of Jack Daniel, and he's having a good old time dancing with the floozies.  Da' old mailman done jump off the Moss Bluff Bridge yesterday, screaming you name.  If you happen to get a mysterious-looking, ticking package in da mail, don't open it.

Day 12 

Dear Emile,
Me I'm sorry to tell you--but I am not your true love anymore.  After the fais-do-do, I spent da night with Jacques, the head piper.  We decide to open a restaurant and gentlemen's club on the bayou.  The floozies--pardon me--ladies dancing can make $20 for a table dance, and the lords can be the waiters and valet park da boat.  Since da' maid have no more cow to milk, I trained dem to set my crab trap, watch my trotline, and run my shrimping business.  We'll probably gross a million dollars next year.

WHAT  I HAVE LEARNED AS I MATURED

I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.*

I've learned that no matter how much I care, some people are just assholes.

I've learned that it takes years to build up trust, and it only takes suspicion, not proof, to destroy it.

I've learned that you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes.  After that, you'd better have a big weenie or huge boobs.*

I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to others - they are more screwed up than you think.

I've learned that you can keep puking long after you think you're finished.

I've learned that we are responsible for what we do, unless we are celebrities.

I've learned that regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades, and there had better be a lot of money to take its place.*

I've learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon and all the less important ones just never go away.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tire.

It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal the neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.

If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again; it was probably worth it.

Some days you are the bug, some days you are the windshield.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

Never ask a barber if he thinks you need a haircut.

A coincidence is when God performs a miracle, and decides to remain anonymous.

Sometimes the majority only means that all the fools are on the same side.

Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.

Following the path of least resistance is what makes rivers and men crooked.

Life is 10% of what happens to you, and 90% of how you respond to it.

Actual Marketing Flops

      Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations.  It shouldn't be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural differences.  For example...

      The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la.  Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect.  Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth."

      In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead."

      Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."

      When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that "no va" means "it won't go."  After the company figured out why it wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.

      Ford had a similar problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped.  The company found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals".  Ford pried all the nameplates off and substituted Corcel, which means horse.

      When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you."  However, the company's mistakenly thought the spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass.  Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

      An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit.  Instead of the desired "I Saw the Pope" in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."

      Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation.  A photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that explained "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused."

      Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros Jos before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means "big breasts."  In this case, however, the name problem did not have a noticeable effect on sales.

      In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.

      Japan's second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours.  Upon finding out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company changed its name.

And finally...

      In an effort to boost orange juice sales in predominantly continental breakfast eating England, a campaign was devised to extoll the drink's eye-opening, pick-me-up qualities.  Hence, the slogan, "Orange juice. It gets your pecker up."