Madrid is an energizing experience for me, as I knew it would be, because of my unfamiliarity with the language. Thanks to Mr. Lugo in high school, I can do nouns passably in most shopping situations, if I have time to think about it, and I can read fairly well mostly due to an expansive vocabulary which allows me to pick "cognitive" words to patch in stuff I don't actually know. "Oferta," for example.

When the missus, or Wry Jr. are not around, things get most interesting, as I can usually lean on my son (who is fairly proficient) or wife (near bilingual) for "ayudar." When it's just me, or me and Wry III, I become the family expert, and all are amused by my refusal to open with "habla Ingles?" as I regard that as cheating.

And so, I am halfway through a semi-urgent conversation with a barkeep (in a clean, well-lighted place in Toledo) regarding obtaining change so my youngest son can use the bathroom. It suddenly occurs to me that when I fail to recall basic vocabulary (cambio = change? money = dinero?), my Spanish-speaking skill seems to be saying "em," followed by speaking English, word-by-word, slowly, while TRYING TO THINK OF THE SPANISH WORDS THAT WOULD FORM THE THOUGHT IN ACTUAL SPANISH.

As if the Spanish barkeep, in hearing English spoken word-by-word and slowly, would suddenly, magically, hear the sentence-thought in his native tongue.

What would Harold Hill say?