Gomez Incident #3

It was completely my fault. I started the whole thing. I admit it. Because it turns out that you do not get smarter as you get older. This is a myth perpetuated by old people, because sometimes it gains them a little respect. And God knows they deserve respect - not because they're smart, but for all the crap they've had to put up with over the years. The older you are, the more crap you've had to put up with, and the more respect you deserve, especially from the whippersnappers who have no idea the cruel games life has in store for them, the poor slobs.

No, the sad truth is that you actually get dumber as you get older. Sometimes it seems that my entire existence is dedicated to proving that fact. Like the time I read or heard somewhere the Spanish word "te" (tay) used to denote the pronoun "you". For some reason this made me think of "Como se llama" (komo say yama), the Spanish way to ask someone their name, literally meaning how are you called. What an idiot I'd been, I thought, saying it wrong all these years. Obviously, it should be "como te llama". Well, at least I could finally stop embarrassing myself and start saying it properly.

It never occurred to me to get a second opinion, or to suppose there may be more than one way to say "you" in Spanish. That was dumb. But I was so proud of my linguistic epiphany, I immediately shared it with my son, Adam. That was even dumber. Because the great god of irony stepped in right on cue and made it one of those special moments in time when a son actually listens to his father - and inevitably lives to regret it.

That evening, at a local bar, the mezcal is flowing, Adam and his lovely fiance Sandra are starting to get a glow on, and practicing their Spanish with the locals. Adam is getting chummy with the bartender, who is bilingual. They're hitting it off pretty good, and he realizes he doesn't know the chap's name, but that's okay, his dad just taught him the proper Spanish way to ask. But in a mezcal haze he forgets the "como" completely, remembers the incorrect "te" perfectly, and manages to come up with only half the "llama", blurting out something that sounded like "Te ama." And he accompanies this statement with the kind of deep, soulfully friendly look found only in places like the bottom of a mezcal bottle.

A look of surprise comes over the bartender's face, he throws his hands up in the air, mutters "No!" and walks away. Adam is stupified. He sits there for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out what had just happened, when the bartender suddenly returns, lunges over the bar at Adam, gives him a big hug, and says, "I love you too, man."

Poor Adam has no idea what's going on. The bartender releases him and says, "You were trying to ask me my name, weren't you?"

"Wasn't I?"

"No. You said 'Te amo,' which means 'I love you!'"

"Ohhh... no... oops." Half the bar was laughing now.

"What you wanted to say was 'Como se llama.'"

"Como se llama?"

"Como se llama."

"Not 'Te amo?'"

That got the other half of the bar laughing, including Adam, who was naturally a good sport about the whole thing, never once chastising his poor deranged father for leading him astray, and in true Gomez Incident tradition, leaving the bartender an obscenely large tip.

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