No hablo espanol

I learned two things today at work (which are totally unrelated, by the way).

1. I need to learn Spanish.

2. Men from under-developed countries need a reality check.

I've realized that I have a natural tendency to (attempt to) speak in Spanish when I am helping a customer that speaks about as much of my language as I do his. Today, I had an extremely pointless conversation with a gentleman looking for two X-Boxes.

"No tengo dos," I said. "Yo tengo uno."

Naturally, the man thought I was fluent in Spanish, so he started saying all this stuff I didn't understand. Then I had to explain in English that I didn't speak all that much Spanish. And of course, the girl I work with that speaks Spanish as her native language was off today. A conversation that should have lasted five minutes lasted about a half hour.

So Mom, Dad, anyone. For my birthday (or Saint Patrick's Day, or Easter, or whatever holiday you can justify spending this much money), I would like this.

I've also noticed that men from a certain region of the world (although I can't pinpoint a specific country) are cavemen.

Just for the record, I'm not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination. I just don't like being treated like a herd of cattle.

These cavemen I'm referring to come to this country and expect women to cower when they enter the room. Like I said - a reality check is in order.

Today, a caveman came to my register and had me quote a broken gold bracelet. I told him I would buy it from him for $20. I can't even describe the look on his face - he looked at me as if I was out of my freakin' mind.

"Twenty dollars," he said, "You can't give me more than twenty dollars?"

I gave it my new "take-it-or-leave-it" look that I've quickly learned works much better than the explanation of how we price gold, how the point of most businesses (including this one) is to turn a profit, and how he probably got ripped off because he bought it from an expensive jeweler. He didn't like being told no.

He then walked over to a case where we display some of our digital cameras. He looked at me and snapped his fingers. I looked at my boss and said, "That man is out of his damn mind if he thinks I'm going to respond politely to that."

So that was my day in a nutshell. Man, you guys wouldn't believe some of the other stories I've come home with.

More:

After I finished writing this post, I turned off all the lights and headed for bed. Scout was happily humming (some song I couldn't distinguish) in his sleep and I couldn't help but smile. Dang, he is so freakin' cute.