" Votre mission, si vous l'acceptez que ce sera pour ravager le renard et puis arracher toutes ses plumes. Le soleil ne doit jamais atteindre ou tout sera perdu. Il est imp�©ratif que vous vous assurer que le cheval et l'�¢ne ne se rencontrent jamais. Est-ce clair.?"

I had just received the message for my next assignment call, but I had yet to run through the translator. It did not make sense that we had to do this step since all of the agents were fluent in at least five languages.

If the bureaucracy said to do it using a translator machine, so be it. I received good money, so I didn't really care how they spent it.

I enjoyed writing about vacation sites, besides I got to visit each area for about a week. This way I had accurate facts. Given that my message was in French, I could only assume it would be in France. Maybe it would be an exotic area. Oh well time to run it through the translator.

"Your assignment, should you accept it will be to ravage the fox and then pluck all of its feathers. The sun must never rise, or all will be lost. It is imperative that you make sure the horse and the donkey never meet. Is that clear?"

"Absolutely, yes sir, as clear as mud or a fart in a hail storm. Why did all of my French messages come through as a garbled mess? Why couldn't my translator machine work properly? Why did this happen when I was in a non-French speaking country? Spain was great, but most here spoke either Spanish or English, not French. I had actually been here two months, covering various areas and hadn't heard a word of French."

I called the 800 number to speak to the boss. I really disliked doing this because it looked like I couldn't figure things out by myself. In this case I couldn't, none of it made sense.

"Hello, Agent Angela here, how may I help you?"

"Angela, it's Frank, this darn translator is acting up again and the message I got makes no sense."

"Let me check, Frank. OMG. Someone here either doesn't know how to use the machine or really messed up your message. OMG a fox, feathers, horses and donkeys," she giggled, "definitely an interesting assignment." She now laughed uncontrollably.

"Cut it out, Angela, I know what it says. Just tell me my new message."

"You are to go to Paris and do a piece on French vacations and cruises. You have one week at your pick of a hotel and one week on a cruise. Enjoy. Bye." She snickered before hanging up.

"Great, at least it wasn't me and wow, I get two weeks, now that is truly a working vacation." I said to myself as I did an air fist.