Several years ago, I had the opportunity to live and work in Antwerp, Belgium. Ever the language lover, I did my best to learn Flemish, even though I worked in an English speaking office and most Belgians speak English fluently.

My co-worker, Serge, took me under his wing and taught me a lot of Flemish. Most of the time we got along great, but occasionally we annoyed the hell out of each other. We’re both quite mischievous and loved playing pranks. At times, I think we wanted to strangle each other, and yet, we just couldn’t stay mad long enough to do it.

Meanwhile, our boss took advantage of our salary status by occasionally springing deadlines that would keep us at the office in Brussels until one or two in the morning. By the time we’d get back to Antwerp, we’d be starving, so we’d hit up one of the many all-night restaurants there.

On one such occasion, Serge suggested eating at a place called the “Kot, Kot, Kot, Kieke Kot.” The name translates as “buck, buck, buck, chicken coop” and it reminded me of that old Monty Python skit about the restaurant where every single dish on the menu contains SPAM, because every single item on the “Kot, Kot, Kot, Kieke Kot” menu contains – you guessed it – chicken.

I was tired and goofy-giggly, but Serge was a little grouchy from low blood sugar. I could tell I was annoying him by the way he would sigh and roll his eyes at my antics. Still, I couldn’t refrain from singing, “Kippety doo dah! Kippity aaaaaay! Who’d of thunk Liberace was gay?” (“Kip” means “chicken” in Flemish, and at 2 a.m. this seemed like a logical refrain to my work-addled mind.)

Even after our food arrived, I couldn’t put down the menu, and kept asking Serge what various things meant. “What’s knoflook?”

“Garlic.”

“Paddenstoel?”

“Mushrooms.”

“Sinnasappel?”

“You know that one…orange.” Serge sighed and held up his greasy fingers. “If you’re not going to eat, could you at least get us some more napkins?”

“How do you say that?”

Serge sighed again and spoke to me slowly, “Ik wil jou handtekening in mijn bips, alstublieft.”

So I dutifully requested this of the man behind the counter, who – after a hearty chuckle – replied, “Are you quite sure about that?” before handing me a stack of napkins.

When I walked back to the table, Serge was laughing so hard there were tears in his eyes.

“Your accent is really improving, you know,” he remarked.

“What did I really say, Serge? Tell me!” It wasn’t until the next day at work that he finally confessed that I had asked the waiter to sign my ass.

One of my duties in Belgium was to edit their corporate brochure since they were becoming an English-speaking company. Everything had been directly translated from either Flemish or French, so there were plenty of syntax errors.

After a while, though, seeing so many foreign words began to mess with my spelling. The Flemish word for “middle,” for instance, is spelled “middel.” I would have moments when I would have to look up the simplest words in English just to be on the safe side.

One day, as I was trying to sneakily look up the word “people” in English via an online dictionary, Serge suddenly appeared behind me and said, “I can’t believe you are looking up the word ‘people.’”

He just wouldn’t let it go, either. He was in annoying sibling mode and there was nothing I could do. We sat next to each other, too, and at random moments he would lean over and ask me how to spell simple words like “water” or “hello.” At one point, he even sent me an e-mail asking if I remembered how to spell “people.”

That was it, I’d had it with his teasing. I kept my composure outwardly, however, and merely said, “Hey Serge. Are you desirous to receive a concave beverage receptacle from which the nitrogen-rich gas we inspire upon this terrestrial sphere has been displaced by a leguminous infusion?”

“What?”

“I’m merely querying, dear colleague, to determine whether you care to imbibe the ubiquitous office elixir?”

“What language is that?”

I leaned in closer and said, “It’s English, Baby. It’s my mother tongue.”

“But what are you saying?” he asked. I didn’t reply. I simply got up from my computer and returned a few minutes later with a cup of coffee. The look of disappointment on his face was clear.

I shrugged. “I asked if you wanted a cup of coffee, but you didn’t reply.”

“But those weren’t real words,” he protested.

“Oh, yes they were. You are very good at English, Serge, but let’s get something straight: English is my bitch.”

I’ll never forget the look Serge gave me. It was like he couldn’t decide whether to kiss me or to kill me. I had to lean forward and hide behind my monitor until I could regain my composure. For once in my life, I had found the perfect words.