The other day, I went into my first JC Penny store. Yes, in my 28 years of living (at that time), I haven't shopped at this “JC Penny”. I was looking for a nice blue sweater with grey stripes (Rugby-ish) that is part of my Quidditch costume for the Halloween party. In any case, I ended up in the boys' section, 'cuz the girls/women's area all had these frilly sweaters and none of them came close to the one I was looking for…
As I browsed about, I heard this family talk in a language that sounded familiar — it was Arabic. They happened to be in the same area as I was and lingered there for a bit. I have to admit I was eavesdropping for the sake of finding out if I could still understand the language. While I looked at the different blue sweaters they had in the kids section, I listened intently; the mother didn't want to get her son a shirt with a skeleton on it. “No” she said in Arabic, “No skeletons”. “But mom, I want this shirt!” the boy protested (his Arabic enunciation was mixed with a California accent). The grandmother chimed in, “Choose anything else you want. What do you want? What is it you're looking for?” So, they continued going through the clothing and picking something that would be acceptable for the mother and pleasing to the child. I even listened in when they were discussing how reasonable the prices were, and calculating how much the sale price would be… All this time, I was looking down and picking a sweater that will match my “Ravenclaw” house (which I actually found).
That's kinda scary that I knew what they were talking about. All this time, I thought that I had forgotten the language that I had learned in secondary school. Freaky. Or I guess it's good that there are some things you can't forget.
p.s.,
If you were the family I was eavesdropping on, sorry! I was just practising my long-forgotten language skills. 😛
