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"But I don't speak Spanish."

"Then you should come back Wednesday for English."

"But I only have until Monday. Tomorrow! Look," I said, "I don't see why you can't just teach me in English. There's no one else here: just me and you."

"But the DMV inspector, if he ..."

"HE'S NOT HERE! It's just us, and that pile of shitty laminated color copies of traffic signs, and a bar with all the stools up on the tables!"

"But if he comes in ..."

"If he comes in," I said, "just start talking in Spanish, and I'll just nod and smile. I don't care. As long as I can sit here for eight hours and take the damn test. I must pass this class!"

Finally she relented. She would give me the course in English, as long as I promised not to ever tell anybody, and as long as the DMV guy didn't come in.

Fine.

So things were going just great for a good 20 minutes or so, until guess who showed up: Yup.

What are the odds?

The odds were pretty good, it turns out. These schools are supposed to be inspected every three months, but somehow this one had escaped governmental scrutiny for well over a year. Until, of course, the day I showed up.

If there was a bright side to this, it was that the inspector was from Wisconsin and knew even less Spanish than I did.

So there we were: Lupita happily chattering away, me nodding and smiling like a nebbish, and this DMV guy, who somehow wasn't figuring out that something was drastically wrong.

Lupita soon caught on that I had retained a fair amount of vocabulary from my high school days and could string silly but realistic-sounding phrases together.

So I nodded and smiled and stroked my chin pensively, occasionally interjecting things like "Camino con Jesus!"

At one point she asked a question, and I managed to put together what probably sounded like a monologue if you didn't know any better:

"Bailo con cucarachas tu no fumar marijuana. Estoy muy boracho y vomitamos en tu zapatos. ¿Dónde está los baños? En la boca del Pepe. Sí. ¿Estamos aquí? No. Está ayi. Mocho. Es muy mocho."

During our breaks, Lupita and the DMV guy stayed in the back room interrogating each other, while I put away as many shots of Herradura as I could in the time allotted. Believe it or not, my Spanish improved exponentially with every tequila shot.

"Viva la Raza," I roared as I handed in my test at the end of the day.

Even the test had been in Spanish, but choosing all B's landed me an impressive 71 percent, 11 percent over what was required.

Yup. I win. The case was dismissed. And the system can kiss my pucker.

Fight the power.
salon.com | Dec. 6, 1999

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