On the Way Home on 8 April, 2011

Yes, this post is written in retrospect, but it did indeed prompt the start of a new style of blog. Stay with me.

On the way home today, I walked past a bus stop. Coming up the street towards me was an older woman, white, mid-40s. She appeared distraught, disoriented, and in a hurry. Her eyes were darting back and forth, and she glanced at me several times as she approached me, then when I came within earshot she asked, tentatively, “I’m sorry, I’m lost, can you help me out?”

I stopped and smiled and said, “Yes, of course.” And not very long after, I was able to help her find her way. That would have ended a largely uninteresting exchange, except as I made to move on she thanked me and said, “Oh, wow, your English is so good, I hadn’t expected that.”

I had an inkling as to where this was heading, but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and the chance to clarify by asking, “Why’s that?”

She answered, brightly and with a big smile, “I don’t know, you just didn’t look like someone who could speak English so well!”

I answered, just as brightly and with a slightly smirkier smile, “Oh, no, I know what you mean! Like, for example, you didn’t look like an idiot, but then you opened your mouth and proved me wrong!”

- ADDENDUM -

A lot of people have asked what happened next! Well, I didn’t manage to get a glimpse of her face, because I was so close to busting a gut laughing that I had to move on pretty much right after I finished speaking. It took a lot of self-control not to whip around and see how the people at the bus-stop were reacting since they were well within earshot of our exchange.

I must qualify that I am not normally the layer of smackdowns. Typically when something ridiculous happens I am, as most people are, simply too stunned by the fact that it is happening to have a witty retort locked and loaded and ready to go. It was just that when I saw her face and heard her first follow-up question, I had an inkling as to where it was going to go, and my brain was already working. Call me insightful, not witty!