【生詞預覽】

perplexed困惑的，lade with裝滿，errand差事

【笑話原文】

The Perplexed Clerk

Heavily laden with groceries, my wife asked a young clerk at the grocery store to accompany her to her car. Arriving there, she opened the doors and, without thinking, sat down in the back seat to check off her list of errands. A moment later the perplexed clerk walked around the car to my wife.

“Lady,” he said firmly. “I don’t mind helping you load your groceries, but I really got to draw the line at driving you home.”

【中文譯文】

困惑的店員

我太太買了一大堆雜貨，就請雜貨鋪的年輕店員棒她把東西送到她車上。倒了那里，她打開車門，便不假思索地坐到后排座位上，查看她的辦事清單。過了一會兒，那個困惑的店員從車后繞過來，語氣堅定地對我太太說：“我很樂意幫你裝車，但是我實在是不能把你送回家。”

【詞匯講解】

1.perplexed困惑的;糊涂的。Gary looked rather perplexed. 加里看起來相當困惑。I am perplexed to know what to do.我不知道怎么做才好。

2.lade with用…裝滿。 The farmers laded the truck with hay.農民用稻草裝滿卡車。

3.check off清點。還有“登記”的意思： He checked their names off as they went aboard the plane. 在他們登上飛機時, 他登記上了他們的姓名。還可以指 “對…不再加以考慮“：After considering all five possibilities, we checked off the second one.考慮了所有的五種可能以后, 我們把第二種可能排除掉了。

4.errand差事。I have a few errands to do in the town.我在城里有些差事要辦。也有”差使“的意思：I have no time to run errands for him.我沒有時間為他跑腿。

5.load裝上車。 The goods are hard to load.這些貨物裝起來會很困難的。也可以單指“裝”： This camera loads easily.這架照相機裝膠卷很容易。

6.draw the line劃清界線。