Aloha! Now my wife and I can say we have been to Hawaii. We spent Thanksgiving and several more days with friends on the Big Island.
We flew Hawaiian Airlines, and in the waiting lounge at the San Diego airport, every announcement from the desk ended with "Mahalo." Ending every routine message with this word gave it special meaning, an urgency, in my mind. I decided it meant, "Don't crash." I liked that and adopted it into other contexts. The waiter said, "Mahalo," it meant, "Don't choke." The checkout clerk said "Mahalo," it meant, "Don't drop your groceries."
I discovered the Hawaiian language is 95 percent vowels. It dates back to the first king of Hawaii, a Polynesian on one of the canoes which followed the birds from the eastern Pacific and ran into Hawaii. The Polynesian language was ALL vowels, and the king's name was AAA'A'AA'AAAA'AA'A'A, because the A vowel was more beautiful in its pronunciation than the E, I, O, or U, and he was the king. When they colonized Hawaii, the king decreed that the language would follow the rule of three A's for every other vowel. Eventually Captain Cook arrived and bargained for a few consonants, in the interest of making global trade easier. He was successful in establishing K, L, M and P. Centuries later, "Wheel of Fortune" was established on these Hawaiian agreements.
I had wanted to try poi, which is a paste made from the taro root. Wherever we went, no poi was available. The macademias, though, were dynamite. The Hawaiian music was also beautiful, a Nashville beat with slide guitar, high full-throated voices, and many vowels. They had a Costco in Kona. The checkout clerk said, "Mahalo," which meant, "Don't rupture yourself getting your purchases back to the car."
And so, now, I say to you, "Mahalo," which means "Don't hit the wrong button logging off and uninstall your entire Office suite." Don't laugh. It happened to me several weeks ago, before I knew "Mahalo."
