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Monday, February 13, 2012

Spanglish in the ladies room....

As I've mentioned in the past, I've been tagged as being "overly friendly".

This carries forward - well, just about everywhere.  In the right circumstance - I will talk to just about anyone.

For the purposes of today's blog....  It was in NYC for my lovely friend, Carrie's birthday dinner - and I was speaking "Spanglish" to the bathroom attendant in a NYC restaurant.

I know this poor woman though that I was nuts.  No need to say so, the look in here eyes really said it all...  To clarify, I was not drinking this night.  Ok, I had one glass of wine later in the evening, with dinner - which makes it even funnier.

So here I am with all my friends, who had had a few glasses of the mighty red & headed off to the Ladies.  I, of course, decided that speaking to the bathroom attendant would be a fabulous idea - since I was waiting anyway.

She doesn't speak English??  Noooo problem -- my husband is Costa Rican - surely I can get by.  Yeah, not so much.  Why I think that I could speak Spanish via osmosis is never clear - but I always try....  Idiota!

I now know why our one client told me that my Spanish was even funnier than his English.

I know this poor woman couldn't wait for me to get the heck out of there.  I was clearly bothering her, but I threw a few verdes into her little basket to make my annoyance at least partially tolerable. (At least in my mind.)   Probably not, because when I walked back in - she had the look in her eyes like "oh crap, the gringa's back"  This time I was comfortable - not all of my girlies were with me and I had one glass of wine, so the words flowed much more nicely as I told her that... my wife was from Costa Rica & she wanted hand cream.  HA!  Yeah, go gringa!

Ok....  So as an afterthought...  The key phrases I will continue to go with at all times:

Donde esta el bano?
Yo quiero mas cerveza por favor.
Yo tengo hambre.
No, senor. No tengo cinco verdes para un foto
Donde esta la cama?
No Soy borracha!
No mas tequila.

Have I covered it all???  Well, if not - it will come to me, and I will say it wrong.  Even still, I will end up where I want to be with what I'm looking for, and someone fluent in the language will be rolling their eyes thinking - ugh, gringa.

No importa.

To the poor bathroom attendant:  Honestly, I was just trying to be kind and not treat you like the just bathroom attendant.  I know some people aren't very nice & I'm just some silly gringa.

To the rest of you, enjoy...  You never know what a small act of kindness will do for another person - or for you!

Have a great day & thank you for reading my blog!!

~Jenn

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the 6:30 am laugh! I'm awake now.

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  2. That poor woman! The look in her eyes said it all and I think she was glad when we all left. lol

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  3. you know what's worst.... going to get a manicure and not knowing a word of Vietnamese, and feel as though you are being paid to be made fun of in a different language for an hour or so. that's always a good time.

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  4. Ha Ha, you're RIGHT Bridgett!! I go to the Vietnamese ladies too & always wonder what the hell they're saying :)

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