#603 Quarrelsome Spanish Customer

On September 2 of 2007 a man at a Home Depot became frustrated after he accidentally hit the wrong icon on a computer screen at the self-checkout line and the machine started speaking Spanish.
He went postal¾as in with an item like a post¾and smashed the computer with a pry bar. He fled and was not apprehended.
Maybe some people need to check themselves out, um, with a psychologist.
But once again life imitates art. The news story reminded of an essay I wrote back on February 2, of 2007. Here’s the appropriate passage.
“…Much in life depends on expectation. We expect life to conform to what we know already. So when I first went to Mexico I had to interpret it based on what I knew. I was cautious.
I remember back in my junior high school Spanish class when I mistakenly assumed frijoles were some kind of bonus donut thing¾you know, free holes.
Or the time someone told me that the word luge was pronounced loogie in Spanish. And that there was a Mexican luge/loogie team for the winter Olympics from Oaxaca.
Oaxaca loogie?
A week after I got back from Mexico, I got the other end of the expectation thing. I went to the self-checkout line in Home Depot. I accidentally pressed the Spanish button instead of English when the opening screen came up. I couldn’t get the machine to go back to English.
So I went through the rest of the transaction in Spanish.
The machine was rather loud in its Spanish prompt. Finally, I reached a point where the checker overseer had to help. I’d used a coupon and the machine was telling me in Spanish to wait for cashier assistance.
I looked around with an enquiring look on my face and the cashier said in slow, loud and exaggerated English, Cou-pon? Cou-pon?
I handed it to her and said Si.
Who was I to shatter her world? She made me accidentally bilingual for a day.
Funny thing though—the receipt was printed in English.”

America, ya gotta love it.