What Did You Say?

One day, while my grandmother was preparing breakfast, she discovered that she was out of eggs. Since my grandfather was not doing anything at the time, she asked him to go to the store. Even though my grandfather’s native language is Spanish, he knows how to say a few words in English. As he entered the store, he wanted to ask an employee for help, since he was unsure of where to look. The first person he encountered was a young female employee walking down one of the aisles. As he approached her, she politely asked, “How may I help you?” After he responded by saying, “I need eggs, ” the lady looked at him with a nervous expression. Believing that it was his thick accent that was confusing the employee, he repeated the same statement while clucking and flapping his arms. As the employee slowly backed away from my grandfather, she threatened to call the police. Fearing that he did something wrong, my grandfather decided to leave the store. What he found out later was that she had misunderstood what he said—she thought he had said, “I need legs,” instead of” I need eggs.” After that incident, he would not go to the store by himself.

Stop...Ahead

One afternoon, Ronald was driving his family and a few friends to a party. He did not know the neighborhood very well, so he tried his best to find the location with limited directions of where to go. Luckily, there was no other car behind him as he was driving on one particular street, because he came to a complete stop in the middle of the road. Everyone looked at him curiously. Then his wife, sitting in the passenger seat, asked him why he stopped. He responded by pointing to the road and reading the four-letter word, “Stop.” All the passengers began to laugh out loud. After wondering why they were laughing at him, his wife pointed out the word, “Ahead” that was only a few feet after “Stop” on the road. Ronald did not want to be the designated driver after the party.