Deception

I'm doing a great job of suckering people here.  I'll ask something in my rendition of fluent Spanish, they'll reply back, I'll give them my signature "deer in headlights" look and ask them to repeat.  Of course, they say it slower, wondering what sort of drugs I'm on.

My greatest difficulty with Spanish is understanding what someone is telling me.  I can speak it alright, but once they reply back, it's really a gamble whether or not I'll understand.  The smart money is on me not understanding what was said.  By this point, I'm somewhat rattled and instead of speaking all Spanish, I drop in some Slovenian/Italian words to really throw them off the trail.  So we exchange some awkward smiles and giggles, and either walk away pretending nothing ever happened, until the next time we're standing beside each other and greet with that same awkward smile, as if to say "are we really gonna do this, again?"  Either that, or someone with a better command of both languages comes in and mediates.

It's really fun when I'm at the mall and acting as a translator for my coworker Wes, because I just keep asking for prices, but can do it in a manner that sounds like I can speak it well, so then the sales person starts asking me what he'd like, how much he wants to spend, etc., but I can't figure out what they have said until after we've left the store...aside from the price.  I at least get that much.