In Which Miss Jill Briefly Reconsiders Her Stance on U.S. Immigration Policy

Because I wanted to recreate the beautiful memories I made during my study abroad in Santiago, Dominican Republic, I moved to Washington Heights in May. I love the neighborhood and it gives me abundant opportunities to practice understanding Spanish that sounds like this: ASDFAKSJNKLANVALKDFJLKDAFJSLKDFSAJ. One day I went into a deli to get some change and was delighted to see that the man working there was rather attractive. As I approached the counter he asked, “¿Cómo estás, mi amor?” I stared blankly into his dark, entreating eyes, as years and years of Spanish drained out of my brain and onto the food stamps scanner. I managed to produce a few short sentences that would make any junior high Spanish 1 teacher beam with pride and sheepishly shuffled away.

I was despondent. Somehow I had forgotten an entire language. With a heavy heart, I entered the elevator of my apartment building, where I ran into the super. He looked as forlorn as I did, as he was scrubbing fruitlessly to eradicate the eternally lingering scents of urine, marijuana and cigars. We quickly embarked on a heart to heart about his teenaged love child in Costa Rica and I realized that my Spanish abilities were inversely proportional to the attractiveness level of the man with which I was speaking. While I was a middle aged housewife using Rosetta Stone when I spoke with the hot/phat deli employee, I was a university grammar professor from Madrid with the building superintendent.

The super developed a fine rapport with the Venezuelan homeless girl who lived with me all summer and she would often complain that he would use terms of endearment with her like “negrita” and “nena.” I thought that it was pretty hilarious until I called him a few days ago to see if he had any insights to share about our lack of hot water. It turns out he didn’t, but he called me “negrita,” which, correct me if I’m wrong, is pretty ironic. I thought it was funny, so I texted the Venezuelan, “Paco called me negrita.”

Except for that I didn’t text the Venezuelan, I inadvertantly texted Paco. I stared with horror at the message‘s sent status, ruing the dark day that I paid my overdue cell phone bill. I quickly texted a sketchy excuse, but Paco started calling me relentlessly. I kept rejecting him to voice mail and he left one, but I am too scared to listen to it. It was a nice day on Sunday, but I was too terrified to leave the house, lest I run into Paco. When I came home last night I called my mom as I was entering the building because I wanted to be unavailable to talk, just in case. And that was how I became a prisoner of my own idiocy, living in fear of a chance encounter with Paco. Maybe I will file a report with INS to solve this problem. J/K, don’t worry.