Deux cafés s'il vous plait monsieur

I was in Target this afternoon picking up some Father’s Day cards, cat food, etc – and as I was selecting my items a woman with her screaming toddler were slowly perusing the same aisles.

The toddler looked to be about a year and a half old, and was screaming/wailing/crying up a storm. His mother was attempting some half hearted “calming down” techniques as she searched for what ever it was she needed.

I marveled at her forbearance, and her ability to block out piercing sound. This brought to mind a trip to the mall I made just prior to heading over to Thailand. I was in need of some new shorts, and wanted to stop by the mall to see what Guess had on offer.

As I entered the Galleria via one of their department store main entrances, I happened upon an 8 year old rather chubby child – he was on his knees sobbing, tears running down his round red face, and he was being dragged towards the door by his father.

Now part of what impressed me here was the father’s strength. The father was a short Mexican man, and his son was rather generously proportioned – the father was having very stern words with his son in Spanish as he step, by slow step dragged his crying son across the slick floor towards the doors.

The son replied in English to everything his father was saying in Spanish – saying how he’d be good, how he was so sorry, that he’d never do it again, and could they please, please, PLEASE stay, he didn’t want to go.

This is the second part of what impressed me. That while the parents may not have instilled in their son a proper sense of decorum of how to comport oneself when appearing in public, they’d done an awfully good job with languages. The crying boys bilingualism was in full force as he understood what his father said and answered in English – it brought to mind one of those immersion language courses where you’re only allowed to speak the language you’re learning. And I thought, once you’ve learnt two languages, it’s only a hop skip & a jump to learning three or even four. This kid could be some sort of translator, or diplomat or who knows what else if he keeps this up. Well, now wasn’t really the proper time to go over to the father and say how impressed I was with the two of them.

As I made my way across the store to head into the mall proper, the sounds of the sobbing tantrum growing fainter and fainter I only half hearted wondered what the incident was that made the father want to eject his son from the store. I regretted not continuing with my language studies when I was younger – as I only know smatterings of French, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Thai & ASL. I’m more fluent in ASL than anything else other than perhaps French. Never having been to France, I may not be as good in French as ASL – as I can really only ask “if there is a bus for the swimming pool” and “how much is that” along with other niceties in French. “Deux cafés s'il vous plait monsieur.”

Anyway, I was heading for Thailand, and I needed those shorts – now, where’s a mall map when you need one?