A homeowner in Waukesha for 20 years, Steve is president of the Waukesha Dog Parks Organization and enjoys motorcycling, fishing and staying on top of politics.
Oh geez, here he goes again!
No, I’m not going to rag on any specific nationality. Believe me when I say I don’t have a racist cell in my body. I find it comical, the various languages that a person can happen across each day. One of the waitresses at the place that Pat and I frequent the most is on vacation to Greece. Pat thought she was Mexican as she speaks it frequently to some of the “newer” employees. I reminded her that one needs to be fluent in three languages to work here.
This evening we ran across a fourth language in the neighborhood. I’ll keep you guessing what that may be. It really doesn’t matter because there was a communication breakdown that shows how important it is that we all be speaking the same language.
I like to patronize the various new places in town, looking for someplace to find a special food that one can’t get elsewhere. This particular place just opened yesterday and there is bound to be some disorganization. Some interesting things can happen, like A1 sauce on the tables, but no steak is on the menu. Or, among the deserts there is a container of fresh shrimp right next to the strawberries. Stranger yet, salad dressing and other fixings but no bowl of lettuce to be found or even a place where it would be likely to sit. Growing pains that will soon be worked out.
But back to my point of a common language being important. You see, we were asked what we wanted to drink, in halting English. It took two people to seeming understand that I must have a diet, sugar free drink. As is usually the case, cola is the sole diet drink available. I thought it rather tasty. Today was sunny and hot. I had spent time in the sun tending to the turtle and tortoises out grazing in the grass in front of the pet store, so I was particularly thirsty. I was offered a refill and I specified diet cola. Shortly the drink came and I immediately noticed that it tasted different. Clearly, one of my sodas was a regular sugar soda. Not too much of a disaster for me. I’m a type two diabetic. But for type one diabetics, like one of my sons, it can throw the day’s insulin into havoc and add to the things that slowly deteriorate vision and organ function.
Yes such mistakes can happen even when both parties are conversing in the same language. But that mistake would be carelessness. This mistake was bewilderment in a country foreign to them.
