Polly want a cracker?

A little over 10 years ago i decided to move northward to the college town of Madison, WI.  I have a few cousins who have lived here and I use to be very close with one of them.  He took me on as a new partner in crime and we invaded the bar scene every Wednesday through Saturday night.  Every friend that we came in contact with knew that my cousin was half Mexican and that his younger Mexican cousin was moving in from Chicago.

Little did i know, but every idiot that my cousin knew must have taken Spanish I or II in high school.  They would come up to me and try to use whatever opening phrase they could try to squeeze out of their liquor induced new found fluency in the Spanish language.  I would humor them for a moment or two and then would move onto whatever subject i chose to turn the conversation to.

For those of you who do not know me i am not fluent in Spanish.  For whatever reason i never was learned in my native tongue.  However, because of my beautiful mocha latte skin tone and Latin features every dumb ass who would meet me would start speaking in Spanish. 

Why is this?

Do i go up to every person of Irish decent and say hello in Gaelic?  Next time i meet a black person should i greet them in Swahili?  Because some dumb ass is unfortunate enough to be Polish should i say what up to them in Polish?  

One of my ignorant cousins attempted this at the Brickyard mall (R.I.P).  She assumed the manager of one of the stores we were in was of Latin descent and asked him, in Spanish, if she would be able to receive a discount on the clothes she was purchasing.  Turns out the gentleman was from somewhere in the MidEast and had no clue what the fuck she was talking about.

Point being, unless you slept with this person, slept with one of their brothers or sisters, know their parents or know them through a friend of a friend; speak English to them in an attempt to communicate with them for the first time.  If the attempt fails and they speak back to you in a different language, by all means continue the conversation in that tongue should you be so lucky as to speak it.  

Don't get me wrong i am not saying English should be the universal language of our fucked up country.  Everyone should be allowed to speak whatever language it is that they grew up speaking.

But in an attempt to save face for the many of you who may know a different language.  I am just saying this so you can save face and not embarrass yourself for jumping to the conclusion that this person speaks whatever language it is that you think you know.  

Imagine thinking you are Rico Suave and you go up to Jessica Alba to try and spit some game.  Who cares that she has a baby with whatever stud it is that she's with.  She's not married to him.  Because her last name is Alba you think, "Damn, i am in, i took Spanish II in High School and am going to try to woo her with my linguistic skills."  But little did you know that her fine ass does not speak the language and you just blew it because you are a total dumb ass. What a shame.

To quote the late leader of Los Vatos Locos, Montana, "You speak Spanish, guero.  So do parrots."