Just enough to get me in trouble...

Italian. 

I know just enough to get me in trouble.

I took it for three years in college and by the time I graduated and we went to Italy I had no trouble getting around the country.

Well, I mean, sure I once told a worker I wanted to buy a shoe store instead of a pair of shoes but big deal!

Easy mistake, right?

The problem with knowing a little bit of a language is that people hear you say one thing and immediately assume you are fluent. 

This happens especially with the elderly. 

They were not afraid to think that I spoke perfect Italian. 

I asked a man on a vaporetto in Venice once what the name of a bird was in Italian.

Just a simple question, right?

Qual è quell'uccello chiamato?

I was hoping for a one word answer to help me build my vocabulary. 

Instead he launched into a diatribe about Venice and the pigeons and the government and I possibly heard something about a son-in-law who kills birds for a living.

Or it could have been something completely different.

Here is a conversation I had in Italian with some policemen in Bellagio:

Me: Do you speak English?

Policeman: No

Me: Ok, no problem. Can you tell me what time the next ferry gets here?

Policeman: Why did you ask me if I spoke English if you speak Italian! 

We all had a big laugh.

The best thing that ever happened due to my Italian skills though was in Siena.

I was crazy pregnant with the littlest minion and we were lost and couldn't find a taxi. 

Billy and I were...

Well, lets just say we had gotten snippy with each other.

I walked into a local restaurant and asked a group of ladies in Italian where I could find a taxi.

First: They began yelling at Billy because I was out walking so late.

Second: They made me sit down.

Third: They called a taxi for us all the while getting water for me and oohing over my belly.

And then came the diatribe by one of the women of which I understood about half. 

Apparently, she has a daughter who lives in the city and has a fancy job and makes so much money but doesn't have time for a husband AND HOW IS SHE GOING TO EVER BE A GRANDCHILD if her daughter never gets married! Does my Mother already have grandchildren? How lucky she is to have a daughter that knows what's important! Italian girls these days just don't have babies like they should!

I assume I mistranslated that capitalized part.

She also mentioned the Pope but I'm not even going to try to translate that.

Then she put her hands on my belly and spoke a blessing over me. 

It was surreal. 

"Excuse me, I'd like to buy a shoe store."

Unfortunately, it's not like riding a bike. 

You do forget it. 

That saddens me. 

I mean, it doesn't make me as sad as the poor woman was about her daughter and her fancy job but it does sadden me.