我曾在白宫暑期实习的经历

It was college. I had a summer internship at the Clinton White House.那是大学时，我曾在克林顿执政时的白宫做暑假实习。

What was it like? Hmm....you know Charlie in West Wing? How he got to be right by the Oval Office and see the President often and they got to know each other and the President took him under his wing and gave him special pens and things?那是什么感觉呢？...嗯..你知道白宫风云里的查理么？他是怎么从总统办公室得到权利去经常探望总统并且他们互相熟悉，总统曾特别优待他送给他一些精致的笔和其它东西？

I had none of that. I listened to speeches and typed them up. The technical word is "transcribe". I also did "copying", "collating" and occasional "binder clipping." I could see the Whitehouse from our building. There were no political banters with White House Staff. No avuncular chats with the President. There were no pens.我并没有那样。我听总统演讲把内容打成定稿。用一个专业的词语就是：转录。我也做复制、校对，偶尔也做装订工作。从我们楼可以看到白宫，在白宫里没有开政治类玩笑的工作人员，也没有总统长辈风范的谈话，也没有总统送笔。

It happened that my boss's name was also Ellen. One day I was covering for her assistant who was out with the flu. It was awesome to have a break from the copier. I felt promoted. I felt big. A little scared.很偶然的我的领导的名字也叫艾伦。有一天她的助手因为流感请假了，我代替那个助手。在复印机前小休息一下是很美好的，我感到开始膨胀，有些头大，有一点害怕。

It was going fine when she got a phone call on her line. I answered it for her outside her office.

当她的线上有个电话时，我已经好多了，在她办公室外我就接了那个电话。

Me: "Hello, Ellen's Office"  

我：“你好，这里是艾琳的办公室

On the phone: "Hey Ellen, it's Hillary. What do you think about....."

对方：”艾琳你好，我是希拉里，关于...你有什么想法.“

The First Lady was calling me! She knows my name! She wants to know what I think!!第一夫人竟然给我打电话了!!她知道我的名字，她想知道我的想法。

Me: "HOLY SHIT IT'S YOU!!!" 

"HOLY SHIT，竟然是你！！"我语无伦次的说

I just swore at the First Lady of the United States PANIC. SLAM DOWN PHONE.I just hung up on the First Lady of the United States.Me: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

我刚刚骂了美利坚第一夫人。 十分恐慌的，我砰的 挂了电话 我刚刚居然挂了美国第一夫人的电话。 大呼一声：“干...!”

Yes, it is as bad as it seems. Overwhelmed by the awesomeness of talking to the First Lady, thinking she meant me directly when she said "Ellen" I got verbal diarrhea and swore at her. Then, in shock, I slammed down the phone like it was radioactive. Maybe thinking that would undo everything. Then realizing that I had done that, yelled out an even worse obscenity.是的，要多糟糕有多糟糕，沉浸在和令人敬畏的第一夫人对话回忆当中，回想她直接对我说“艾琳”的意思，我还多嘴的骂了她。之后，更震惊的，我迅速挂了电话好像电话是一个放射源一样。当然想像可以撤销任何事。当我明白我已经做了这些，更糟的喊出了淫秽的词语。

The rest happened pretty quickly:My boss yelled out "What is going on out there!?" The First Lady's aide called back immediately. I apologized. She said:"can you put us through, please?" I put the call through.接下来的事很快的发生了： 我的领导喊道：“外面发生了什么？”第一夫人的助手立即回拨了过来，我道了歉。她说：“你能让我和你么领导讲么？” 我把电话接了进去。

My boss never mentioned it to me. I was too embarrassed to ever look at her again. I went back to copying.我的领导从没向我问到过这个事，我感到非常不好意思以至于不敢再看着她。我回去继续复印材料。

 I never did meet Hillary.

 我再没遇到希拉里。

本文转自扇贝Ellen Vrana回复