My father-in-law came to visit for over a week recently. He is an interesting character. He’s impulsive, stubborn and speaks in Mexican slang. My dad, as you know, is also quite the caricature. He’s small, loud, stubborn, and impulsive and speaks his own language that only my husband seems to understand.
Both of these men like each other although they’ve only met each other once before. And I would come home from work and find them sitting side-by-side on the couch chatting up a storm. (Not to mention they had both of my dogs on either side of them in a puppy sandwich.) As I got closer to them, I would try to drown out the loudness of their voices to get to the words that were being spoken. Honestly, I couldn’t understand a thing. So I would look at my husband and make a face that begged ‘Do you know what they are saying?” He would either tell me or raise his shoulders suggesting he had even less of an idea than I did.
At one point my dad said something in perfectly clear Spanish (that even I understood).
He shouted “If I come to Mexico, I don’t want to stay stuck in a house all day. I want to see something”
To which I replied “Now I know where I get it from”
Looking over at my father-in-law for his retort, he looked quizzically at both my husband and I and said “What did he say?”
To which I thought “This is hopeless!”
I guess it doesn’t matter if you don’t speak the same language. It’s really all about how you feel in someone else’s presence. It was obvious that ‘the dads’ enjoyed each other’s company. So what if they could never have a conversation!
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