Saved by the Bell By Darren Baker

česky

Man, was I lost. The place was Marburg, Germany, but everybody around me was speaking only Italian. I had enrolled at Phillip University to study German but since I had some free time in my schedule, I figured I would learn a little Italian while I was at it. It seemed like a lot of students had free time in their schedules because there had to be a hundred of us sitting in the classroom by the time the instructor walked in. She was tall, dark-haired and spoke a hundred miles an hour.

"Le la mia mo re lala lula..."

What the hell, I thought. This is supposed to be basic Italian. Why isn't she speaking German?

Her blowtorch monologue ended when she turned to the student sitting at the far left end of the first row with a question. Instead of saying what I would have - "Eh, sorry, me no speaky Italiano" - he said something that earned him a buono from her. As did the next student and the next. Didn't any of these people read the course guide? This was supposed to be for absolute beginners, meaning "no comprende." But here they all were, row after row, making small talk with the lady. I was beginning to think I had walked into the wrong classroom.

I decided to check it out with the guy sitting on my left. Yes, it was the right room and no, he didn't have a clue as to what they were talking about, either. Thank god for that. I didn't want to be the only idiot sitting in there. Eventually she got to the halfway point of the class and asked this fellow, "Le la mia mo re lala lula..." And what does he say? Something that I didn't understand but apparently she did. Huh, I'm not sitting next to him next time. Of course, there wasn't going to be any next time, because in a few seconds the others were going to be asking themselves, "Hey, what the hell does he want here?"

So I braced myself for the question, but it went over my head and to the girl sitting at the far right end of the last row. The instructor probably didn't want the students in the back to feel neglected sitting so far away from her and decided to now work from their end forward. I got the impression she made a gesture towards me at the same time as if to ask, "I hope you donna minda?"

Nope, not at all, lady.

And so it went - more questions, more answers - all the while I'm checking my watch out waiting for the bell to ring. But the instructor now sped things up, obviously determined to get to each and everyone of us that first lesson. When I noticed she was making good time, I turned to the girl sitting on my right and asked her the same thing I had asked that wiseass on my left. She too claimed to be lost. But of course, when her turn came, she talked like she had been eating spaghetti all her life.

That was it. One hundred students in the class and only one hopeless case. I did actually know one line of Italian, which I picked up from an opera once. Siam tutti morti means, "We're all mortals," but in this case it might be better translated as, "We're all dead." Or at least I was. In any event, I was ready to bring the lesson to a close with it when lo and behold the bell rang and everybody jumped up out of their seats. So I told the lady arrivederci and was out the door.