napkin

As we were sitting at the table after dinner, Ashley was trying to remember the word for napkin. All of us tried to call it to mind by verbally trying out words for a few minutes, tavola, tavolino, tovagliolo. When nonna came in, we asked her how to say it... she told us she'd actually heard one of us say it, tovagliolo.

It then occurred to all of us how idiotic we must sound half of the time... "Table... napkin... napkin? Napkin!"

Between repeating mundane words over and over, using more proper expressions instead of colloquial slang, and pronouncing things in a very exaggerated way (at least once we think about what we must sound like in English), people must think we are completely vacuous.

Cheeee buffo.