I was reorganizing the children's foreign language section at work yesterday. I sat on a small step stool, focused on three stacks of books in front of me. I'd already sorted the obvious languages (French, Spanish, German) into sections and labelled them. But I was having trouble identifying dozens of others. Is that Polish or Finnish? Is there an app to identify (not translate)? Is it shameful that I, after 33 years of Latin teaching, can't tell the difference?
I should mention at this point that the "uniform" for the job is a blue T-shirt with the Book Barn logo on the front, and STAFF printed across the back.
A customer approached, and rather than just ask what he wanted to know, this happened:
He gestured to the logo on my shirt and said, "I can see by your puffed up shirt that you're the person I should ask about this."
WTActualF? Was he clocking me as male and thinking, "Hmm. Chest seems more prominent than usual. Best comment on it in case he hadn't noticed."? Did he assume I was female and felt within his rights to comment on the state of my boobs? Was he just socially awkward and accustomed to speaking without thinking? Was this (involuntary shudder) some bizarre pickup line?
For the record, I refrained from striking him in the throat with a copy of the Larousse French-English Picture Dictionary. But that was only because I was wearing my Book Barn T-shirt and didn't want murder to reflect badly on my employer.
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