Politicians can argue all they want about who needs to speak what language where, all I know, is that I need to learn Spanish. I recently found myself in a palace of frozen treats, all of which looked delicious, and I had no idea what most of them were as I am bound by my American monolingual shortcomings and couldn’t read the menu. I have a tongue that is linguistically one note but spread with adventurous buds.
While in Riverside I just typed “ice-cream” into my map app, and it gave me Cold Stone, Wendy’s, and La Michoacana. I yelped the one I had never heard of and thanks to a five star review I hit “navigate”. There was no such navigate button once I arrived and my senses were overloaded with new sights and new words.
Some things I could read, like chile, queso, and pepino. All of these were written above tubs of ice cream. Chile, cheese, and cucumber flavored ice cream? Cheese ice cream is surprisingly good. Cucumber ice cream is fantastic.
Standing over a counter transfixed by new ideas with what little words I could figure, I saw the family next to me receive a take out tray piled high with… I have no idea what it was. The worker drizzled something over the top of it, handed the woman a fork, and with a smile, said woman went and sat down. Experiencing an unusual moment of bashfulness, I could not muster the courage to ask either the family or the employee, what that pile of whatever it was, was. Instead I pointed into the case and asked, “is that a mango chili popsicle?” The worker said it was and I said “por favor,” handing her my MasterCard.
Brohammas 