Gringo Loco, or Where Three Years of Spanish Got Me

This was an especially shitty week, and it could have had a shitty end except that a really funny story came out of it. 

Allow me to set the scene. It’s six ‘o clock Friday evening and I am leaving work. I have to run to the building next door to drop of two FedEx packages and one Lone Star package (a small regional delivery service). This is my job cause everyone I work with is too fucking lazy and too fucking fat to waddle their fat fucking asses over there when it takes no fucking effort at all (I said it was a bad week). But I don’t particularly care, it’s not like it’s a hard thing to do. 

So I enter the building next door and go to the mail room on the second floor. I’m tired and trying to think of all the adventures I am going to go onto that night. I have the FedEx things in one hand and the Lone Star in the other. And what do I do? Not paying any attention, I place the FedEx packages in the Lone Star box. 

Well, shit. The packages fall in slow motion, I yell out “NOOOOOOOO!” in slow motion, and the FedEx envelopes crash to the bottom of the Lone Star bin, far, far from arms length. I stick my hand in there to fish them out. They might as well be a mile away. There is no was I am getting to them. Have you ever had to fish something out of a standup mail box before? It’s kinda sorta impossible. 

I take heavy breaths and try to regain my composure. These packages HAVE to be in California by nine the next morning (this morning as I type this), or one of our pain-in-the-ass clients isn’t going to have their stupid little spot run at EXACTLY the right time. So I can’t just say, “Oh, well, cest la vie!” I have to get the packages out. 

I’m not MacGyver. I’m not even MacGruber. I can’t look around the room and try to put something together that will make this whole operation a piece of cake. The only way I can usually take care of things is with some sort of force. Like, if something is wrong with my computer. I don’t try to calmly restart it or force quit things. I just slap it a few times. If that doesn’t work, I kick it. 

I decide the best option is to turn this thing over to where the packages will fall out. No problem, right? Except that it’s really, really heavy. And it’s jammed up against a corner, scraping the edges of a UPS drop box and the wall. But I don’t think about these things. So I’m trying to tip this thing over and it’s not going well. It keeps getting stuck on the wall and threatening to topple over on top of me. Which technically is what I want it to do, but I don’t want to get stuck or anything. Imagine if I got pinned under a Lone Star mailbox? And no one came in cause it was the weekend? And I starved to death or my pinned leg got gangrene or rats came out of the walls and nibbled my face away? No, I couldn’t take those chances. I shoved the mail box back to the wall. 

Dammit, think, Austin, think! Rational plan one is to go to a bar, get a drink, and come back at eight when the pick up occurs and explain the situation. But I kinda want to go home and nap. Rational plan two is to leave a note. But then I figure the note might get lost, and the Lone Star guy and the FedEx guy probably hate each other and would not go out of their way to make sure a rival company gets a package. 

I go over to the supply table on the wall and get a huge roll of Priority Mail tape. This is my big plan. I’m going to fish the tape down in there, attach it to a package, and reel it up. ‘Cause that’s fucking gonna’ fucking work. But I’m desperate. I unspool a line of tape and drop it into the abyss of the mail slot. And of course it attaches to everything BUT the package. It goes to other letters. It gets stuck on the wall. And the tape can’t get a good enough grip of the packages in the first place for me to hoist it up. So I’m screwed. This was my last big plan. 

Unless…

Unless I can find a broom to stick in there, or a vacuum cleaner pole or something. 

And wouldn’t you know it? At that point, a cleaning lady came in, only to find me with my head and hands stuck down the mail chute screaming, “Why, God, why?!?” 

I jerk to attention and smile at her. I don’t want her to think that I’m stealing mail, cause I’m sure she cares. “Hi!” I say. Maybe a little to friendly. She smiles back. 

I point at the mail box. “I got a package stuck in here and I was wondering if you have a broom or a large pole or anything I can use to fish it out?” 

She’s just staring at me like I’m speaking jibberish and I’m like, oh shit. I’m really going to have to do this, am I? I’m really going to have to try… Spanish?!?

I gather my composure. She hasn’t responded to anything, Maybe she’s just deaf? Very shyly, and with seemingly mounds more hick accent then I normally use, I ask her, “Habla Ingles?” God, I hope that was the right conjugation. 

I get a reaction. She shakes her head and says, “No, no.” 

So I say, “Um… I… uh… quiero… no, that’s not right… tenga…. tenga… how the fuck do I say broom… tenga big stick?” I shit you not. This is what I say. Cause it doesn’t matter if it’s a broom. I just need a big stick! And I make a motion with my arms, like when you are describing how big the fish you just caught was. This could not get anymore white. 

Another cleaning guy shows up. I ask him, “Habla Ingles?” He nods, “Si.” Well, if you speak English, why did you say “si”?!? I don’t tell him this and instead try to explain my predicament to him. More cleaning crew is coming into the room. And this other guy just looks at me. Something tells me that his English is probably about as good as my Spanish, and that this isn’t going to work. 

So I’ve exhausted my Spanish repertoire. How, HOW do I know so little Spanish? I mean, I know more and I guess I was just on the spot, but I literally COULD NOT FUNCTION. And I had even made a Spanish joke earlier in the day (a coworker told me that her kid was doing bad in Spanish class, and I was like “Don’t you mean muy malo?” Ha ha, fucking brilliant, Austin). And I order Mexican food all the time! And I have friends that are fluent in it! And I live in Texas! How, how am I this bad? Why did I think taking Japanese was a good idea? It’s not like there’s going to be a Japanese cleaning crew that I can converse with some day. That language is fucking USELESS! 

In that moment, I regret every decision I’ve ever made. 

But there’s hope! I see a duster on the side of one of their trash cans, one that’s kinda long. And I point at it. And I say, “Can I borrow this… uno momento?” Blank stares again. So I just grab it and say “Uno momento” and hold up one finger cause, you know, don’t want to confuse anyone. 

Okay, now they’re on board. They smile and nod and agree and I take this FUCKING DUSTER back to the mail box and start fishing the packages out again. It’s not quite long enough, but I managed to hit the packages up against the wall of the mail box and then slide them up and, just like that, they are in my hands again. 

I turn back to the cleaning crew. There’s like four of them now and they are just staring at me. I place the duster back in its holster and say, “Um.. muchos, muchos gracias!” I put all the packages in their respective bins. I high tail it out of there. I hear a little bit of laughter. I’m listening for the words “gringo loco,” but I don’t hear it. I sheepishly walk to my parking garage. I need that nap. 

Moral of the story: learn Spanish, not Japanese. And don’t be stupid.