Sally Breslin: My Life: MY HIGH-SCHOOL SPANISH CLASSES FINALLY CAME IN HANDY...SORT OF

Every day, I try to walk about two miles, usually on the country road where I live. No traffic, no sidewalks, just a quiet road that makes a complete circle. So if I start at my house and walk the full length of the road, I end up right back at my house. And if I see two cars during my entire walk, it’s a busy day.

So the other afternoon, when I was taking my walk and a white van suddenly pulled up in front of me and stopped dead, blocking my way, I was startled.

I could see the driver, a young male, and he was alone.

My first thought was maybe he wasn’t actually alone. Maybe the back of the van contained a gang of thugs who would leap out and drag me into the van and I’d never be seen or heard from again. My second thought was maybe I should turn around and run.

The problem was, trying to outrun a van at my age probably wasn’t such a hot idea, especially since the last time I’d actually run faster than a trot was when I was about 12 and was trying to catch up with an ice-cream truck.

As I stood there, debating what to do, the window on the passenger’s side came down and the driver leaned over and said, “Donde esta diez y siete?”

My high-school Spanish classes kicked in and I guessed he was asking where number 17 was…or maybe sixteen (I always got those two mixed up). I inched my way closer to the van and could see some Amazon packages lying on the seat, so I felt a little more at ease…even though a part of me still thought the packages might be decoys to give me a false sense of security so I’d let my guard down, and then the thugs more easily could leap out and ambush me (okay, so I watch far too many crime shows on TV).

Still, it seemed a little suspicious to me that a delivery driver wouldn't have a GPS system, or something other than a strange old lady, to help him out.

I know most of the people on my road by their names, not their house numbers, so using my best high-school Spanish, I asked the driver what the name was. He gave me a foreign-sounding name that wasn’t at all familiar. It took a few seconds before it dawned on me I’d asked him, “Cual es su nombre?” which meant, “What is your name?”

I could tell it was going to be a difficult conversation, so I asked him if he spoke any English. He shook his head and said, “No, no soy de este país,” which I was pretty sure meant, “No, I’m not from this country.” He then leaned across the seat, handed me a package and pointed to the label.

I took the package and stared at it. Without my reading glasses (which I have no reason to take with me on my walks because there’s nothing to read in the middle of the woods unless someone carved a message into a tree), any label smaller than a billboard was just a blur to me.

I had no idea how to explain in Spanish that I couldn’t read without my glasses. So I just shook my head and shrugged.

He probably thought I was illiterate.

Then I decided to try another tactic. I pointed at the label and asked, “Nombre?” He gave me a name I actually recognized! I even knew exactly which house the family lived in. I also remembered their house number had fallen off their mailbox a while back – actually, thanks to the town’s snowplow routinely knocking down the mailboxes on my road, most of them have no numbers or only a portion of a number left on them anyway – which might explain why this delivery guy needed help.

But how, I wondered, was I going to give him directions to that particular house? I struggled to remember how to say left and right in Spanish. The word “derecha” popped into my head, but I couldn’t remember which one it was.

And I didn’t want to send the poor guy down some old logging trail that dead-ended in a swamp.

The driver pulled his phone out of his pocket and spoke into it in Spanish, then handed it to me. I assumed the English translation was written on the screen, but without my reading glasses, it could have said, “Get into the van right now and no one will get hurt!” for all I knew (I really have to quit watching those TV crime shows).

I pointed to my eyes and said, “Mis ojos son malos,” which I hoped meant I had bad eyesight, or at least something similar. With my luck, I probably was telling him he had ugly eyeballs.

He seemed to understand, however, and took the phone and spoke into it once again. This time, the translation was an audio one that gave me the name and house number he needed, and then instructed me to please speak into the phone and direct him to it. He handed the phone back to me.

Well, I know about as much about Smartphones as I do about nuclear science. I mean, I have an old flip-phone that makes and receives calls. Period. So I had no clue I was supposed to press something on his phone and then speak. I just stood there talking into it and rattling off directions...and it didn’t record a single word I said.

At that point, the guy gave me a look that didn’t need any translation to figure out – he was trying hard not to laugh.

Unfortunately, I was his only hope out in the middle of nowhere – although by then, if a deer had trotted out of the woods, it probably would have been more help to him than I was.

Two more tries later, I finally was able to get the phone to record what I was saying and successfully translate it into Spanish...I think. I felt like hiring a marching band and breaking out the champagne.

The guy flashed a huge smile at me, said “gracias” and took off down the road. I continued my walk and a few minutes later, he drove by as he was leaving and gave me a thumbs up.

Still, I wasn’t entirely convinced he’d made it to the right house. That movie title, “Lost in Translation,” kept popping into my head.

So when I got home, I posted a note on my neighborhood’s Facebook page, asking if the package had been delivered.

To my relief, it had.

Maybe when I take my walks from now on, I should carry my reading glasses with me…and a Spanish dictionary.

Oh, and pepper spray, just in case I do happen to meet up with some actual thugs.

Gotta stop watching those TV crime shows.

# # #

Sally Breslin is a native New Englander and an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net

FREE E-BOOKS!