One night a while ago I was out at Estelle’s lounge with some girlfriends. It was late and it was the last bar of the evening. My girlfriends and I were, needless to say, tired and gone. I was of the sort of mindset that I was becoming a little bored, since at Estelle’s things had quieted down a bit. (The evening had consisted of many cocktails, reunions with old college chums, witnessing a failed cocaine deal and trying on firefighters uniforms outside of the fire station. We told them we were a bachelorette party. They’ll let you do anything if you tell them that.)
I was growing restless and had little interest in the drunk men who kept coming up to us. So, I decided that I would pretend I didn’t know English. I would pretend to be Swedish. After this decision was made, my conversations with men began to go something like this:
Him: *holding a miller lite* WANT ONE?
Me: *shakes head* I no know English.
That’s really all it took. I also mindlessly threw my hands up in the air whenever someone began talking to me. After I left, my friend Carol was approached by some men who asked, “Did she really not speak a word of English?”
To which Carol replied, “Nope. Not a peep. She’s really nice. But I had to pantomime all night. Geez.”
“Oh,” said one of the men, “she knows pantomime?”
