I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been caught at an Undocumented Workers Ball without a lick of Spanish to use for decent conversation. It’s so embarrassing. Once I’m discovered, I’m relegated to the children’s area or the punch bowl table, where people resort to wild gestures or yelling to communicate with me. I’m not deaf people, I just don’t understand your language.
I once overheard a man accidentally speak English at one of these foreign affairs to his wife after trying to shoo me off to the pinata corner: “If she’d just learn the language,” he’d said, “maybe she’d be worth something, but as it is…” and then he shook his head and sighed. His wife, who I’d like to say has a very big nose, clucked her tongue and looked at her long red nails. Bitch.
I ran into the bathroom and cried. As I ripped paper towels out of the dispenser and blubbered, two men came out of the stalls and said something I couldn’t understand. They gestured to the door, pointing to the sign with the little man on it. I covered my face and raced out of the men’s bathroom, as they snickered in my wake.
Apparently, the Ambassadors heard tell of my woes and knowing my award whoreness, had their people call my people and the next thing you know, I’m walking down the red carpet in a Vera Wang with spanish light bulbs flashing in my eyes and spanish media hurling questions and microphones at me.
A skinny sequined one-hundred-year-old lady, Ho-Ann Rivieras, who had clearly been under the knife a few times, grabbed my arm, looked deep into my eyes and asked me a question. As I looked at her eighty-year-old daughter standing next to her, Ms. Rivieras pulled at my hemline and sniffed my shoes.
I felt so sorry for this woman who had to smell my footwear simply because I could not speak her language. I vowed right then and there that I would learn Spanish. Oh sure, I’ve bought the book, a set of CDs, a one Spanish Word A Day calendar and subscribed to the podcast, and the amount of effort I have put in to using them all provides me with the ability to say to you: “Taco, burrito, and Nacho Libre.” Hence the vow.
Plus, how am I supposed to brag about my new Spanish Award if I can’t understand the website that founded the darn thing?
Here is a picture of my award…
The award was presented to me by Shadow Crystal of Impeccable Items of Interest and Natalie of Tell Me About It. Usually the presenters enter the stage together, say something lame according to the cue cards and the audience laughs as a courtesy because they are on international television and must appease the advertisers and the TV audience. Not so with these people. If the presenters aren’t funny, tomatoes are thrown and they are booed off the stage, TV cameras be damned.
Had I understood Spanish, I would have known when to duck during my acceptance speech, rather than stand at the podium, chattering on about the little people who know who they are, and waiting for the exit music to drown me out into commercial. As my Vera Wang took the brunt of rubber chickens and apple sauce, I slinked off stage where a translator told me I had to present this same award to 5 other people.
“Oh really?” I said, dripping with latex poultry and crushed apples in cinammon.
“Well you can take this award and shove it up yo-”
“Or you can take this rubber chicken,” he sneered, waving a pink pimpled blob with a beak near my face, “and shove it up yo-”
I held up my hand. “Right. I get it.”
So, Nanny Goats In Panties is pleased to present the following five bloggers with the Arte Y Coup Award.
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If you’re interested, my book review of Chip Kidd’s The Learners was published today on Curled Up With a Good Book. Click here if you’d like to read it.
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Oh, I am such an ass. Twit, whatever. Do you know I started reading this post the day it was posted, got interrupted and never finished it. Today when I got your email, I came over to peak and remember reading the first half. I just never made it to the end. And I promise, I usually DO read EVERY WORD you write. OK, let’s start a new bloggers award for author’s with ADD!! Ha! Thank you so much, by the way, of thinking of me!
The other kids got allowance. I got a job. My father assured me they’d all LOVE me and I thought they were talking about me with some degree of hatred.
I learned Spanish and I learned that they did, in fact, hate the boss and his kid.
Sigh.
I understand Spanish beautifully but I really would have preferred the allowance.
Oh this was good. Do you sip tequila while you write?
This also reminds me of spending time with my husband’s side of the family. They’re Portuguese and the only words I can pick up in their rapid-fire conversations are my name, and the swear words, which when uttered together make me start to panic a bit.
no comprendo! ay yay yay!
Avoid all the words where you have to roll your freakin Rs
@Sue: um…. si?
Aye chica. Que bonita.
Mi semana esta ocupada porque mi pelo necesita mi atencion.
cuando yo tengo un dia mi va a poner esto en mi blog.
Okie dokie? I’m totally flattered.
This is such a better post than my award-acceptance post. Clearly you are far superior to me. Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
hahah.
that’s all i’ve got.
i can’t stop giggling.
Ok that was moo-y hilari-o-so!
I love pretending that I can’t speak English when I travel …. it’s a total hoot. I did it years ago when I visited the States …. amazing what people will say if they think you can’t understand.
You sound like you know as much Spanish as me. My step mom is from Venezuela, but the best I can do is “enchilada.”
you know i totally get what you are saying. my problem is i can’t even understand when spanish speaking people are speaking english anymore. i’ve been in turkey so long that i only understand english with a turkish accent. when we were in the states for christmas we went to a mexican food restaurant and had no idea what the waiter was saying to us! i think i might have started speaking turkish just so he would think i didn’t know english! turns out he was asking us what we wanted to drink. thanks for translating dad.
Great suggestions, guys! Thoughtful and creative. Now it’s my turn to LMAO!
You should dress like Charro and go around sayin “hootchie coothchi coo!” That’s authentically espanol, right?
LMAO, BTW, you’re too funny!!!
Aww Margaret Hugs!!! I can send you some watermelons from my blog if that comforts you. Congratulations for the award, you truly deserve it.:) The conversation with the translator was the one to die for.lol
Good Day:)
You crack me up! Thanks for the end of the day giggle!
Have you tried speaking English but with a heavy Spanish accent? You are bound to hit on the odd word eventually which is the same in both languages.
Or just nodding thoughtfully during conversation and occasionally chucking “moo-ee bee-en”, then slapping the speaker on the shoulder before moving off?
How about wearing dark sunglasses and just moving about the outskirts of the event like the Secret Service, pausing occasionaly to check if doors are locked. No one would expect you to engage in conversation.
Or you could take one of the party children around with you, point to objects and ask “Como sedisay en ingles?” People will think you are the tutor.
Just some thoughts Nanny G