Bookstore Encounter #847

A customer came in today looking for Pimsleur's Arabic and Hungarian language tapes. She was a thin, energetic, vigorous woman of about 45 or 50 with white-blonde wavy hair, tanned, weathered face, and unnaturally blue eyes (contacts, she confirmed later). As we rode up the escalator, I asked her why she was learning these languages- whether it was just for fun, or for her line of work. She said it was useful in the kind of work she does for a living. Of course I had to ask what she did for a living, to which she replied, "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." We both laughed, while my mind wandered immediately to Alias and Sydney Bristow and espionage in general. I said aloud, "We laugh, but it's true!" She and I burst out laughing even more jovially at that.

I'll bet you the world she was a spy.

The whole situation, with the laughter, and the secret thoughts hiding behind the laughter, and the darting of the eyes to see if we could read behind each other's laughter was...funny. She and I got to talking for a bit about how dead-useful knowing a bunch of languages can be, career-wise, especially Arabic and Spanish. She said she was a flight nurse in the military, and a regular nurse at HUP as her civilian job (she is soooo a spy!), but dude, if she had told me that she worked at a bank, I-I, I don't know what I would have done. I might have just fainted right then and there.

Anyway, hm, oh well, the point is, sometimes, I forgot the reason why I want to learn all these languages, and the theory of language, and then this woman came along to remind me that they do have a place in the world, that I'm not just wasting my time and being unpragmatic. Thanks, Lady with Unnaturally Blue Eyes. Do you think if we did a retinal scan on her, she'd turn out to be a double, like Ethan Hawke or (shudder) Francinator?! Ok-kay, I really need to turn down the imagination station a notch or two or five.

(She is soooo a spy, y'all! Eeek!)

Oh, and I met Jonathan Safran Foer yesterday.