Spanglish

A few years back, I moved to a farming town called Oxnard; and while I love the people, there is something I have really come to miss: English.

I was married to a Dominican woman, so it's OK for her. Yahaira is like Blackspanicasian. She speaks both Spanish and English ... at the same fricken time. They all do. It's like listening to a song on the radio when you keep getting that interference from the Spanish station...

"Hey, Jude, don't be a -- "

"Yo quiero sentir sus labios -- "

"And any time you feel the -- "

"Numero uno en exitos, cien y siete PUNTO UNOOOO!"

Here is actual dialogue from a nearby B of A: "You know Maria? Ella es la persona who went to the wedding con nosotros el julio pasado. Remember?"

It's only a matter of time before the locals secede altogether and become Spangland.

People ask why I never learned Spanish, and I say, "Are you kidding?! Can you imagine how hard it would be to tune people out if I understood everything they were saying?"

When Yahaira broke into Spanish, I considered that free time. I heard her the way a dog hears its master: "Blah blah blah Jason. Blah blah blah Jason."

Sometimes it backfired. Like the night Yahaira called from Vons to say, "Do you want some ... como se dice ... patita de pollo ... you know, patita."

"Um. Sure. Gimme two. And a Pepsi."

That night I ate chicken's feet. Two. With tortilla flatware.

Yahaira started learning English when her Spanish was only half-installed, so she gets "down from," not out of, the car; she dreams with, not of, other people; and while most couples spooned in bed, we would only scoop. So it goes.



In Spanglish, all the plurals end in s. They don't do the singular plural thing. I'm wearing underwears, the lottery is at 32 millions ... white people eat a lot of spaghettis.

"No, honey. It's just spaghetti. There's no s at the end."

"But there are so many of them."

"We'll touch bases later."

Idioms are tricky to begin with, but mixed with Spanglish ... Let's just say that a little slang can be a dangerous thang.

"The toilet is overfloating. You said we'd nip this problem in the butt. Do I need to get the Jellow Pages?"

Yahaira always had reasons for her goof-ups and spent a good part of the day trying to explain them...

"I thought it was a peek preview because you're peeking at something."

"It isn't Old-Timers Disease because they forget things?"

At one point she gave up on words altogether and took to making noises. Every item in our house had a sound. Many of them whistled.

"Papi, have you seen my woohoo-woohoo?"

"Your what?"

"My pinza, you know, the jigamathing."

Yes, gentle reader, I know that it's "thingamajig," but I don't have the galls to tell her. She might go bazooka.

I fear that my own English has spoiled by osmosis. I find myself looking up terms I knew in third grade. Was bob wire really invented by a man named Bob?

During our recent lunch together (Yahaira and I are just friends and no longer an "anti-racial couple"), she ordered smashed potatoes and cold slaw, and I a Caesar salad with extra crunchies.

"Do you mean croutons?" asked the server.

"I could mean just about anything." I said. "I'm from Spangland."