Pass the Salt Please

This weekend my mother came over for a cookout/visit and she shared a story with my husband that I thought others might enjoy. 

When I was growing up, my family was typically in church every time the doors were open. (I know you are asking yourself what happened, huh?)   My dad was on several church committees and both my parents sang in the choir.  So naturally if there was a social function or our church hosted guest speakers my folks often opened our home to visitors.

We sometimes hosted missionaries from foreign lands and it was always interesting to visit with these folks as they had some of the greatest stories.  One such missionary was invited into our home when I was a teenager.  Jack was just back from Vietnam and he shared wonderful tales of his mission tour.  Jack told us about how difficult it was to communicate with people that did not speak English very well.  In fact he told us about a meal that his host described the meat as "woof woof".  He was a terrific story teller and was quite likeable.

One evening while we were all sitting at the dinner table listening to Jack regale more of his adventures, my dog jumped up on our back porch and started barking for all he was worth.  My dog was a white mutt named Salt and obedience training was not his strong suit.  Our missionary friend was sitting at one end of our table with his back to the porch so he could not see the dog, and my father was sitting at the opposite end of the table so he could see Salt very well.....if he looked over our guest's shoulder.   My father, in effort to quiet the dog so that we might enjoy our friend's story,  yelled "SALT!".  Since it was very common for my dad to yell at the dog, my family did not react to Dad's outburst. Salt shut up barking for a moment but did not leave the stoop.  After a few seconds passed Salt started barking again.  My father glared in the general direction of the dog and by proximity--our guest, and yelled in a sterner voice "SALT!"  At this point our missionary friend jumped from his chair, grabbed the salt shaker and ran to place it in my father's hand.

And he thought there was a miscommunication with his Vietnamese host.