Well its’ Monday so it you know it was bound to be one of those days. True to form… I slept terribly last night, wound up being up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, woke up late this morning as a result and my dog picked this morning to decide she needed to be retrained as to what bodily functions must be performed— knowing, of course, that I was short on time.
Rushing around I was quite surprised to find that I did not forget anything! However, being late to the commuter lot I wound up having park in The Mysterious Beyond (see previous blog post). This of course had the disadvantage of having to walk much farther before I could get to the bus stop. That had the net effect of allowing me to miss my bus by a mere 47 seconds (that’s not an estimate). Could I have caught the bus? Sure if all of the stars were in alignment, etc. etc… Well OK if I were not suffering from some severe lower back pain, I would have broken into my O.J. Simpson sprint, hurdled the street and the bus and landed right in front of the door before the bus pulled off…. not a drop of sweat on me and my clothes in perfect condition; bowing briefly to the cheers of the onlooking commuters who all wished they could to that too. But as I said the back is hurting so no laurels this morning.
So I wound up doing something that I have not yet had to do… In the interest of saving time and not having to wait another hour for the next Crystal City bus I got in the slug line on the way INTO work. I was not sure where the Crystal City slug line for going into work was but, my bus stop was right next to the Pentagon slug-line and I could rid the Metro two stops from there. My choice was a no-brainer! I stepped into the slug-line (sounds like a Soul Train dance, doesn’t it) and did not have to wait long before I was able to hop into a vehicle. <That was all just the intro now for the reason I’m making the post in the first place…>
I got in to a minivan with a lady driver. Spanish music blaring. The other Slug rider got in the front seat so the back seat was mine…. or so I thought. Just to my right sat a little girl with her headphones on. I was wondering what she was listening to. Then she said in perfect Spanish (couldn’t have been older than 3 or 4) Mommy, my show. Having taken Spanish for 7 years I sometimes don’t even realize that I had just made an automatic translation. Of course if it is toward the end of the day as opposed to early on— forget it. I guess I qualify to take English as a second language! Anyway, Mom apologized (also in Spanish) and hit a button on the dash. Talk about high tech! A little screen folded down and there I was staring at Dora the Explorer. I didn’t realize there was going to be “in flight entertainment.”
In the mean time the other person who was riding in the front seat and the driver began having a conversation in Spanish. At first it started off casual, but then the front passenger decided that he was going to tell a joke… I understood part of it and then laughed when he said the punch line— not because I understood the whole thing, but because it was time to laugh. They stopped laughing to look at me. At which point I stop laughing because the driver has not slowed down any! Lo and behold she remembered she was driving. I think it had something to do with the car starting to swerve to the right– but what do I know. The driver now starts talking to the passenger and says I think he can understand what we are saying. Then WHILE STILL DRIVING AT 70 MILES PER HOUR turns to look at him for his reaction!
SERIOUSLY? Can the person operating the moving motor vehicle please keep their eyes on the road. Eye contact is important, but now was not the time! The passenger just shrugged, so I said, “Si, es muy verdad.” [Tranlastion: Yes, that’s very true]. She turned to look at me again. Then she said to me (in English) you understand Spanish? Thankfully she did not keep looking at me to wait for my answer but turned her attention back to the road. Well I couln’t resist, so instead of replying in English I said, “No, no hablo Espanol. Hablo Ingles solamente.” [Translation: No I don’t speak Spanish. I only speak English.”] I love using that line. But (and I know this is bad English) I shouldn’t have oughta done it. SHE TURNED AROUND AGAIN! This time I think she actually sped up! Perhaps the fact that I was turning white from fear made her turn back around again. After all when a black guy turns white, you have figure SOMETHING must be wrong, right?
Well the driver and the front passenger continued to have an entire conversation about the fact that I could speak Spanish and how they are glad that they were not talking about me because it would have been quite embarrassing. And YES, she kept taking her eyes off of the road to look at him for his response. Then just to test me, I’m sure, she was talking to him about something that had to to with politics (I couldn’t follow it all) and in the middle of the conversation she threw in “Entiende que alli?” [Translation: Do you understand that back there?] Without missing a beat I replied. “Entiendo que decirlo fuerte y claro” [Translation: I understand you loud and clear.] I could have just said, Si comprendo, but not knowing her I decided to reply in the formal since she asked in the formal. I will not type her one word response/exclamation. And, by the way, she did not bother to use the Spanish version.
And so it went the rest of the rest of the way except they pretty much ignored me now. I was amused when the passenger up front asked in Spanish why they don’t just speak English since I could understand anyway. The driver, TAKING HER EYES OFF THE ROAD AGAIN, said, in Spanish: Does it matter? We all giggled. Then little Jr. (actually I think Jr. was a girl) wanted to open a bag of chips for breakfast. Mom turned almost all the way around, while driving and took the chips, put them in a bag, pulled out a bag of dry cereal which I recognized to be Luck Charms (we sure needed those!), and handed them back to the child, turning around again, this time swerving as she did. –I began to have my doubts as to whether or not we would make it to the Pentagon. Then in an English/English exchange (what a concept) the kid said Mommy I want something to drink. She actually did NOT turn around and said, “It’s in your cup holder.” The kid seemed to be having some problems with this and so Mom finally DID have to turn around and this time took much too long trying trying to pry the cup out of the cup holder. We stopped short of the car in front of us that had also stopped short of the car in front of them— and who knows how long that chain ran? What a ride. But hey the kid got her milk! That was the goal right?
After that little incident we sat in bumper to bumper traffic for about 15 minutes with everyone else in Washington, D.C. who was trying to exit I-95 and make the left turn into the unsecured area of the Pentagon parking lot. As I diembarked, surprisingly able to walk on what I thought I was going to be very wobbly legged, we had one last giggle to the commemorate the morning. Without thinking I said in Spanish: “Muchos gracias por el paseo” [Translation: Thank you very much for the ride.] (I was surprised I was remembering that much!) She replied in perfect English: “No problem thanks for riding.” We both realized immediately what we had done and shared a laugh. My only task now was to make it through the Pentagon Parking lot with my backpack and dressed in my bulky black coat, not to mention being black, and a million prying security eyes on me every step of the way without them thinking I was a security threat. You know, me, the guy who is always the RANDOM check at the airport security when I fly! Obviamente, esta vez lo hizo muy bien. Uhhh, I mean Obviously–this time I made it just fine.
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