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I went North today to a large neighboring city. I visited their main mall and shopped around a bit. I really did have things to buy. The kicker, however, was that I had a spanish accent. If I get around to it, I will upload a small sample of my spanish accent, just for reference. I started off inside their Mervyn's Department store on the top floor. I waltzed around the back, leaning around corners and standing on my tip-toes as though I were trying to find something. A girl at the desk was saying something to her co-worker, kind of like she was talking about me.
You might think that a bit presumptuous or even arrogant that I thought she was talking about me. I'm six feet tall, why would I need to stand on my tip-toes? My general body language was a riot. I wish I could have seen myself. My left brow was at a constant furrow of confusion (I have an incessant twitch in that eye anyway, and have had it for three weeks. I think I would have furrowed it inadvertently anyway). Finally, to get this session off right, I approached the counter and asked in my accent, "Can I ask where the exit is?"
The girl (Her nametag read "Shawna") had a half smile on her face, yet still tried to remain polite. She turned and pointed at the door that exits the building. It went outside. I was trying to get into the mall. How was I going to clarify this? My english is shabby.
I looked at her strangely for a moment, peering back and forth between the exit she pointed to and her eyes, which I must admit were very pretty. Without much confidence, I shuffled over to the glass door and peered outside.
"No, I feel sorry. What I am trying to ask is, uh.. I don't want to go outside."
"You asked for an exit sir." She did an excellent job at remaining polite.
"I understand. An exit to go inside."
Shawna looked at her older co-worker with a questioning glance. I had a very hard time keeping a straight face here. "What was that?" Shawna asked, her coworker going back to a lady that was searching for boy's underwwear. On a side note, why are women able to hobble into a men's unmentionables department and nobody has a beef with it? Um.. treading on thin ice now eh?
I held my hands out toward the wall and said "Inside. I exit to go inside."
Shawna turned to her co-worker and asked, "You don't speak any Spanish do you?" The lady shook her head.
"I still sound wrong?" I asked.
"Um.. not wrong, you just don't make any sense."
I acted like I had no idea what she just said. "Could you talk slower?"
For some reason, here, she laughed really hard. She had a very bellowish laugh,which made me love her. "I don't understand what you want sir. I'm sorry."
I laughed too so as to ease tension and said "I feel sorry. I sound wrong. Let me consider.." I rubbed my face like this was a really hard thing to do. I was really trying to think of a more screwed up way to ask this question again. It ended up not working, as you will see.
"I want to visit the .. The Buckle."
"Oh, well they're outside." Her pretty blues got real big as she realized what I'd been asking. The word 'outside' clued her in. "Outside! Oh! Yes. I know what you want."
"Do ya?" I asked, void of any accent.
"What?" she asked real confused.
"I just really wanted to talk to you, so I made all this up."
I 'exited to go inside'. I hope she was flattered, haha.
Outside the store were many escalators. Beside the ascending escalator, I started to formulate ideas whilst sitting on an adjacent bench. You can't pass up an escalator man. I wouldn't be able to simply walk down the ascending escalator. There were too many people riding it up, I'd run into somebody. Probably end up like Arnold in Total Recall.
I got up and approached the descending escalator. Standing by it was a rather young looking couple. Somehow, you can still discern between what couples are married and which are in "courting" relationship. These two were married. I don't know how this has any bearing on the issue, so I'll continue with what's relevant.
As you probably know, the railing on an escalator moves too. So I stepped up to the top of the escalator without actually boarding it, and set my hand on the rail. I grabbed tight and lurched forward as it pulled me, but kept my feet in the same spot, still scared of getting on the moving stairs. I looked around, stunned, while murmuring "Dios" to myself, going back into my spanish facade.
The man and woman seemed not to notice for a good while. The man was facing me, and I knew he'd seen it. Within a few seconds, he nearly lost composure and turned to face a random wall. I know he did it to laugh. At this point, I too had to keep face. I bit my cheek, which somehow keeps me from laughing.. well at least it keeps me from smiling.
While backing away, I looked around as though I were searching for an alternate route. Perhaps stairs or the like. From behind, I heard the lady, who was obviously informed of my situation by the man, as she asked "Excuse me. Are you okay?"
I turned and looked, unsure of what she'd said. I searched her face for a second. "This moves," I said, pointing ahead at the escalator.
"Yes. There are some stairs over by the food court if you don't want to use the escalator," she said.
Now, I doubt she caught on, but I didn't speak english. So I kept looking at the escalator. "Do you want to use the stairs?" the guy asked.
"Las escaleras?" I asked. In spanish meaning "The stairs?"
Apparently, he knew little spanish. "Well that is an escalator," he said, pointing to the moving stairs of death. I laughed. I was laughing because he'd deduced that "escaleras" meant escalator, when really it was the word that meant stairs. I'm glad I didn't really need this fellow's help. To cover for my laughter, I simply said, "I am like a boy. No?"
The guy laughed. "They can be scary."
I scooted closer to the escalator and set one foot on a stair. Deliberately, I let it pull my foot ahead too fast and cause me to fall back in a sitting position on the next stair. I went down this way, just for kicks. There was some laughter, but it wasn't that nice couple that tried to help.
Now, what I find humorous, is the fact that most spanish-speaking countries have all the shopping malls and escalators that we do. So, were they entertained by an apparent stupidity or did they feel foreigners would be absolutely amazed by any form of technology? 'Tis a quandry. And puzzling to boot.
A little over a month after the previous encounters, I came back to the same mall. There was a store in this place that might accept some of my artwork and prints to sell, so I elected to get some information on how to do business. It also made for an excellent opportunity to continue this project.
After doing my important business, I was walking through the halls nodding at girls, sipping on a slurpee and knocking down elderly folk with permission. Ok, so perhaps I fudged that last bit. Most shopping malls have "island shops" set about the halls. In this way, sales representatives for various companies can pitch their offers to you when you don't want to be bothered. Somehow I'm reminded of carnies.
A guy my age called out to me and said, "Excuse me sir. Do you have a cell phone?" In this moment I had to decide if I would play up the spanish accent or do something different. I finally decided to do something different. I smacked my lips twice, as obnoxious as I could, and hobbled over to his desk.
"Kyocera," I said, letting my head wobble arrogantly. I put the slurpee down and placed both hands on the counter with a thud. My left hand slid on the glass counter and it made my shoulders go off balance. I picked my left hand up, coughed into it, pretending to play cool.
He hardly seemed to notice. He was the Abercrombie and Fitch type, so I imagine that he'd seen guys like this before. Perhaps his best friends were something like this. All that I know is he seemed not to notice and continued with his offer.
I kept looking around, self consciously. This was to get him to realize I was paying no attention. I noticed a nice clear phone, something inspired by the i-mac and volkswagen beatle trend. "Hey I like that phone. It's deluxe," I interrupted. And that's no exaggeration, I interrupted.
He took it out of the case and started going on about it while I continued looking around and checking out girls. But then he did the unexpected. He started laughing, really hard. "What?" I asked.
"You're not doing this on purpose?"
I quickly looked at the counter and on the ground, then felt my clothes. "Doing what? Did I spill my slush man?"
"No.. I thought you did something.. Never mind," He tried to cover. It was real smooth. "If you're interested in our service and our phone, at all, I can set you up with a new account right now."
"I'm on a contract man," I answered, still looking at the counter and my cup.
"Oh that's easy to get by. You can say you aren't getting service in your basement and you want service disconnected because you aren't satisfied."
"I don't have a basement," I answered, somewhat disgusted that he would assume he knew that much about me.
"They don't know that," he answered.
To play up my egocentric male stupidity, I just stood staring at him. I blinked incoherently as though I had no idea what to make of the suggestion. He stared back for awhile. Out of discomfort, he turned his head to the phone again. He looked up again and lost all composure. His abrupt laughter gave me no time to prepare and I too laughed. "What the ---- is that all about?" he asked.
I just took a card and said, "I'll call Verizon and get back to you on this ok?"