I just sold a patch on Ebay. Not just any patch… a very special patch. A hard earned patch of honour that I once wrote a story about to post on the internet in order to entertain any and all interested in being entertained. And now, full circle I’ve come to write another story about that very same patch.
Several fruitless years in attempt at employment with a local Big Box Store where I felt my back ground and I had something to offer and it finally had to be done. One evening I told the wife …
“Yo necesito trabaja” …… “ I need to work”
And so, linguistically skilled or otherwise I checked the little box next to those all so important words that every online job application seems to have nowadays … Spanish Language Skills. Employment was offered that very next day to a Gringo in a land where I’m told… Gringos don’t want to work. In no time I found myself happily employed where skills and honest efforts are rewarded with far more than monetary rewards……
They are rewarded with patches…and badges. All to be worn with strut and pride. Some guy named Julio Mendoza in California just sent me $1.75 for my ” Yo Hablo Espanol ” patch and I think thats a pretty good deal. After all $1.75 will purchase one sixth of a six pack of some very expensive craft brewery India Pale Ale.
I’m betting that anyone that has to “purchase” a Yo Hablo Espanol patch just has to be a fake….just like me. After all, with a name like Mendoza do you really need to check the Spanish language box?
And so, craft beer in hand, I toast Julio in Califonia. I wish him the best and offer him use of my Spanish / English dictionary….just in case.
