Speak in Spanish for Five Minutes

My Spanish class was a petri dish, and I was penicillin. My teacher, who name-dropped UCLA as if she were getting paid by the syllable, adored a group project almost as much as talking about her upcoming retirement. Every time she said, “Separate into groups,” I could almost see the sonic boom rings as my classmates all scurried in the opposite direction of where I was. Interestingly enough, there were two other women in class who appeared to be in their forties, so I think everyone assumed we wanted to keep to our kind. Uninterestingly enough, they were both taking classes to combat empty nest syndrome and had nothing in common with me. I hated being relegated to Old Lady Corner.

Old Lady Corner consisted of Maria, Not!Maria and me. Maria and Not!Maria had surly teen-age children at home and would discuss it to no end. Every so often, they tried to include me in the conversation, but I don’t have kids and had absolutely nothing to add. Additionally, they were both native Spanish speakers, and, even though this class was Spanish for Spanish Speakers, my Spanish sucked by comparison – there was no way I could keep up with them. I didn’t dare use English in that class, though, because Professor UCLA-Snob had dog-hearing and could hear a whispered, “How do you say . . . “ from a mile away – and she would make you pay for using English in a Spanish class (public ridicule, thy name is retirement-age Spanish instructor)! Therefore, when they became dismayed that I was so old and still so barren – which was every time because they never seemed to remember anything I said – I couldn’t fully articulate that children are not for everyone and, despite the lack of a working knowledge of diaper genies, I could still lead a capable and fulfilling life. Instead, I would just sit there mutely trying to figure out how to translate diaper genies or fulfilling life until they would give up and go back to talking about their lives.

Not!Maria once feigned interest in my life, but, really, she should have stuck to complaining about her children because she was not good at it. At all. I was volunteering at a yoga studio at the time, and she asked me about it, claiming she was interested in taking a class. While I was digging through my bag for a class schedule and trying, in Spanish, to explain that all classes were by donation, I happened to look up to see her very exaggeratedly winking at Maria as if to say, “I don’t really give a shit,” while making yes-I’m-interested-please-continue-talking noises at me. I was so pissed that I fell for her bullshit that, of course, I immediately stopped, and snapped, “Oh! You’re not interested!” She insisted, “No, no, I really want to know!” What? No, I just totally busted you! You can’t keep lying! Of course, I wasn’t able to translate any of that and sat there glaring at her while she smiled encouragingly at me and poor Maria squirmed uncomfortably. I’m such a repressed Catholic, though, that when it came time for me to wax triumphant at her later comeuppance I wasn’t able to enjoy it.

The semester ended with each student giving five-minute oral presentations, and, boy, did they suck! The only one that was intelligible was Maria’s. Everyone else – myself included – sounded like an unfunny, Spanish language version of David Sedaris’ Jesus Shaves. Not!Maria’s grammar was atrocious – her English-language equivalent would be someone who thinks supposably is a word – but I still thought she would breeze through an oral presentation. I didn’t, however, take into account her fear of public speaking and complete lack of organizational skills. Would that I had snapped a quick picture of her notes to share here! Her notes were a zig-zag configuration of printed Wikipedia pages (en español) that had been cut up and repositioned using tape and a stapler. In addition, she had used three different colored highlighters to highlight every single word. I don’t know what she thought she was gonna do with all that, but she was waving it around for all she was worth during class. When it came time for her to give her presentation, she tried to demure, but her DIY, jagged-edge margined, legal-sized paper notes gave away her prep time and  Prof. Dog Hearing, PhD, was adamant Not!Maria stand up and talk for five minutes. So, Not!Maria shuffled up, knocking over her purse and leaving it to spill onto the floor, and stood at the teacher’s podium trying to start.

Without looking up, she alternated opening her mouth and clapping her hand either to her forehead or her mouth. Then she picked up her notes, shifted her weight, and put them back down again. She did this for about two minutes, and, at first, I could barely keep from laughing. I’ve never been a more attentive audience member, and so was the rest of the class because you could have heard a fucking pin drop! The suspense was killing me as to how long she was going to stand up there hemming and hawing. And then the suspense turned to boredom, and boredom turned to awkwardness. She stood up there so long, gaping like a goldfish without any help from the teacher or her fellow classmates, that I started to feel sorry for her. And I could not have been angrier with myself!

She had been giving me the cold shoulder since the day I busted her winky-eyed winkingness, so why did I feel compassion for her inarticulate ass? It’s not like I would win any points with her, my teacher or my classmates because it’s not as if any of them would have picked up on it. I hate that I can’t even quietly enjoy the schadenfreude. I mean, really, who is going to die if I silently titter at someone’s crappy public speaking skills?