Post # 5: Come se dice... Shut Up!

I hate people who have a deep seeded urge to learn another language but instead of purchasing Rosetta Stone or enrolling in a foreign language class, they ensnare the one person in the office who speaks Spanish and coerce that person to teach them the most basic of nouns and pronouns. You know what I am talking about. Listening to some idiot trying to roll their "R"s is like nails on a chalkboard to me. In my head I'm screaming "You sound retarded! No legitimate spanish-speaking individual would ever take you seriously!" In fact, if I were a legitimate spanish-speaking individual, I would probably punch that nerdy middle-class white lady trying desperately to convince herself she is worldly. Ma'am... you're 55 years old with a pitiful career and rapidly decreasing skin elasticity. It's called a mid-life crisis. You are never going to commit fully to learning that language and I would bet my life on it. One day, maybe a year or two from now when the economy grows slightly more stable, you may book yourself a weeklong getaway to Cancun in a forlorn attempt to feel young again. You'll round up the girls in the book club, pack up your one-piece Sag Harbor bathing suits, your SPF 90 (don't want the wrinkles to get any worse) and spend the entire six months prior cornering and harassing that spanish-speaking employee at work to maybe... just maybe... develop the ability to speak a comparable quantity of Spanish words that a child could learn from one single episode of Sesame Street. So to practice what you've learned you stand in front of the mirror in your SlimSuit and Spanx and envision a Ricky Martin-esque latin lover complete with an open button-down shirt and exposed chest hair sweeping you off your feet into a world of passionate besos... you tilt your chin down... bat your eyelids.... and say in your most seductive decibel... "Donde esta la biblioetca?"

What she doesn't realize is that from the moment an American steps off that plane at the Cancun International Aerpuerto, there will not be a single time...at all.... even once during that trip when Spanish is spoken as the primary language. Everyone in Mexico speaks English.

Hater Point: If you are white and are trying to speak Spanish in public, there is a 99.5% chance you sound like a moron.