I Thought I’d Know More Danish by Now
Part 1: Faking It, Grocery Style
Here we are, nine months into traipsing our way through Denmark, and I can speak pretty much NO DANISH whatsoever. I still can’t even understand the woman in the checkout line at the grocery. This is a transaction I do probably two or three times per week, and the script doesn’t really alter much from visit to visit. Every time, I think okay, after the groceries are scanned, the cashier is going to tell me a price — so listen for a NUMBER — listen!! — and then she will ask me if I’d like a receipt: a “kvittering”(cute!). (I recently learned that sometimes they will ask you if you want some cash. But I don’t know what the words are for that. And I can’t figure them out on the fly because I have no fucking idea what sounds are coming out and how to turn those sounds into words in my brain that make sense, or that I can even replicate or approximate a spelling for, because I just don’t even comprehend the SOUNDS, people.)
So my routine is: cashier says the number, which I never understand, no matter how carefully I listen. But I still say “Okay,” as this word seems to be universal across languages, and because what else are you going to say? “No? I think that’s too much?” Some of us may like to say this on occasion but it will get you nowhere in these types of groceries. Save that shit for garage sales and market bazaars. And craigslist. And maybe the black market, but I don’t really know, maybe you’d get shot for that kind of tomfoolery?
Anyway, after the cashier tells me the total, she then asks me if I’d like a receipt. (“something-something-something-ering”) And I say “Nej tak,” which means no thank you. And then usually I go on my merry way, thinking: Phew! Another journey into the lion’s den! I did it, I made it, I survived! And I showed the Danish people that I AM TRYING. Trying so hard to learn their peaceful way of LIFE by attempting to do these, the simplest of transactions, in their language.
Well, this morning the cashier went off script. Sometimes that happens. And then of course I had to let down my charade: Uhhhh, okay, you called my bluff. I have no fucking idea what you said. Can we speak English? I give up. I am a FRAUD!!! So much for practicing my Danish. My NONEXISTENT DANISH. (Cue sobbing, and something about “failure, utter failure.”)
In the end, it turned out that she had merely asked me if that was everything, but my let’s-pretend-I-speak-Danish script is so inflexible and tiny that it wouldn’t even accommodate her wee variation away from it. Do you understand what I am saying here? I’ve been here NINE MONTHS, people. You’d think I could do this by now; you’d think I’d understand — or at least get the gist of — a minor departure from the basic grocery store script.
“Is that everything?” you ask me.
Well, no, actually, it is not. There is more.
“Would you like a receipt?” you ask me.
What?
Next in “I Thought I’d Know More Danish By Now”: A (Currently) Two Part Odyssey:
