Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Downsize my britches

"Ich möchte eine Pretzel," I announce, grinning at the German guy behind the counter. "Is that right?"

"Right, left!" he cries with gusto, "the pretzel's on the left, why do you say right? You want a pretzel when you don't even know which it is!"

I stutter and stammer in broken German. That's not what I meant, I try to get out, but I inconveniently forget how to conjugate.

The German man takes delight in my discomfort. "Sehr schön!" he roars. "Ein Dollar fünfzig Cent."

"Um, um, ah, danke," I say, slinking away.

"Danke schön! Tschüss!" he screams in ever-increasing decibels. The German tourists laugh.

1 comment:

Bruce said...

Hey man come check out my blog.

There is a recap of some of my lecture on conversation strategy :D

I'll probably get lazy and stop writing within a month though.