Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Open Mouth, Insert Foot
A new customer called me with a problem. It became obvious that we could not solve it over the phone, so we made an appointment to get together. As I was driving there, I was trying to figure out his nationality.
His last name was Malenica. That sounds vaguely Italian, but his heavy accent was definitely Eastern European. Hmmm, what's near Italy? Well, the old Yugoslavia, which is now Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Herzogovina, and a few more I can't recall.... I puzzled over this for the whole drive, and I kept thinking back to the accents I heard in northern Minnesota, when I was married to my first husband.
When we met, I decided to dazzle this man by being one of the few (I was sure) to figure out his country of origin. I announced to him that I was sure he was from Croatia.
His nostrils flared; his eyes grew cold. With hands pressed firmly on the table, as though to keep them from strangling me, he half-rose out of his seat and spat "I'm SERBIAN!"
When will I learn?!!!
P.S. Fortunately, he didn't hold it against me. Once I groveled a bit, the rest of the call went fine.
His last name was Malenica. That sounds vaguely Italian, but his heavy accent was definitely Eastern European. Hmmm, what's near Italy? Well, the old Yugoslavia, which is now Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Herzogovina, and a few more I can't recall.... I puzzled over this for the whole drive, and I kept thinking back to the accents I heard in northern Minnesota, when I was married to my first husband.
When we met, I decided to dazzle this man by being one of the few (I was sure) to figure out his country of origin. I announced to him that I was sure he was from Croatia.
His nostrils flared; his eyes grew cold. With hands pressed firmly on the table, as though to keep them from strangling me, he half-rose out of his seat and spat "I'm SERBIAN!"
When will I learn?!!!
P.S. Fortunately, he didn't hold it against me. Once I groveled a bit, the rest of the call went fine.
7 Comments:
Sometimes it's just easier to ask? You could say, "I was listening to your accent and was wondering where you were from."
Oh dear! Sounds like the kind of thing that I'd do :). We are vetting new lodgers at the moment and one chap wants to have his three year old son stay with him every other weekend. I am trying to find a tactful way to ask how complicated his personal life is - I don't want to get involved in the middle of a messy divorce :/.
LOL! You just have to laugh! that's pretty funny!
Oh, my face would have been flaming!!!
oops... I would have been to scared I would have just not said anything.
lol Oooppps!!!
I won't show my Croatian wife this post. She'd call him a valekye budalla (lol)
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