Another Usage of Dutch Wife

On Monday, I decided to go to the city centre of LA for sightseeing and I asked Y to give me a lift when she drove to her office in the morning. The freeway [motorway] from Torrance, south of LA, to Down Town was a straight road with six lanes on each side. The highway was packed full of cars. Although I had heard about the serious traffic congestion in LA before, I admired of the quantity of cars on the road.

When we were just entering the freeway, Y said,

"How lucky I am today, because I can drive on the car pool lane!"

I did not understand her and asked her what she meant. She explained me,

"If I drive with another person in the car, I can drive on a special lane called ‘car pool lane’".

In other words, it could be called "car sharer’s lane". When we entered the freeway at the junction, the cars with more than one passenger could drive through without stopping at a traffic light. On the freeway, two lane of six were reserved for "car pool", and these two lanes were much less crowded than the other four. Y said it normally took one hour from her home to her office, but it would take only 40 minutes that morning because we were driving on the car pool lane.

"Buy a mannequin doll, have it dressed and put it next to you on the passenger seat, then you can always drive on the car pool lane."

When I proposed it to her as a joke, she replied,

"I will buy an inflatable doll and then I can blow it up before entering the freeway."

Y seemed to like my idea.

"Shall I buy a Dutch wife for you?" (A Dutch wife is an inflatable female doll for male adults’ sexual use.) I told her another joke. Y said that a Dutch wife could not be used for such purpose, because it only had the lower half of the body. Her opinion sounded plausible when I considered the main usage of a Dutch wife. However, as far as I know, all Dutch wives I had ever seen had also the upper half of the body. Our debate about the shape of Dutch wives was heated in the car without reaching a conclusion. Y changed the freeway at the junction of the Stable Center, where the local basketball team "LA Lakers" played, to drive into Down Town and we promptly arrived at the underground parking spaces of the building where she worked.

As we arrived 10 minutes earlier than the time that Y started work, so we went to "Starbucks Coffee" at the opposite side of the street. When I ordered a cappuccino, the young Mexican shopkeeper asked me something. As I could not understand what he said, I simply stared at him.

"He asked your name."

Y helped me. Asking my name for a cup of coffee? Why? I asked myself, but I told him anyway, still without recognizing the reason. After a while, the young shopkeeper cried,

"Moto’s cappuccino is ready!"

When I received my coffee at the counter, I found my name written on the paper cup and understood finally why my name was required. In London I have some Indian colleagues, who have extremely long names. I wondered what happens here, when one of my colleagues, Mr.Krishnamurthy-Kalyanaraman, comes and orders a cup of coffee. Can they write down his name on a paper cup?