I overheard a half dozen or so people talking amongst themselves the other day. The subject was how to conjugate the verb etre and aller (in French of course). I intruded on their conversation and explained that I had a fair amount of French in my past and asked who among them knew French. No one raised their hand, although 2-3 of them stammered a bit and said that didn't matter - they knew 'these things anyway' because they understood Spanish and English.
I was a bit taken aback by that statement and suggested maybe I had a little more authority on the subject and suggested they let me explain it to them and I did explain how the verbs were conjugated in French starting with etre (to be) ... 'Je suis ... Tu e..' and they interrupted me and told me I was being unfair and they had an opinion on the issue and I was not being respectful of them. Furthermore, one person among the group suggested I was not clear on my explanation of the verb conjugation anyway.
I repeated the conjugation, wrote it down for them and asked if anyone was unclear - no one raised a hand. I left and continued on walking. The next day I received a note from my neighbor who had no role in the prior days events except he received a note from someone who had listened and was actually quite vocal. The note explained how unclear I had been, how inconsiderate and disrespectful of others I had been and how I just confused a subject they already knew.
Then I woke up and realized it had been a nightmare.
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