Tongue Tied
I worked at a quick-service restaurant, and my store location was near some sort of convention in Ottawa. The city is pretty bilingual, but not everyone is.
I am most certainly not—I grew up in the prairies, where French is NOT a mandatory subject. Anyway, during one of my shifts, a woman was trying to order but she was speaking French.
Although I can get the gist of things if I hear certain words, she spoke rather fast, so I was having trouble.
After a couple of minutes of back and forth trying to answer her questions, I turned to a bilingual co-worker and asked her to help. That’s when the woman gave a response that made my face turn red.
She said, in totally PERFECT English with as much disdain as she could muster: “This is Canada. We speak French AND English”. My mouth dropped. Not only because of the comment but because SHE UNDERSTOOD ME THE WHOLE TIME AND DIDN’T TRY TO HELP.
I couldn’t wrap my mind around why someone would do that. All I could do was stare at her for a few seconds and walk away. CharmainKB