I have been spending a lot of time negotiating recently trying to gift someone my new watch.

I was having little success gifting this beautiful watch until this past week and the gift was finally given! 🙂

Having been left behind in this technology crazed world I am still keeping track of time the old- fashioned way. I wear a wristwatch.

I know it’s cool to carry an iPhone and whip it out of one’s back pocket when a time check is required.

But I am not tied to my iPhone like it seems all the rest of the world is. Sometimes, I actually go places without my iPhone.

Shocker! 🙂

During those times a wristwatch comes in very handy.

So, this fall when my old wristwatch lost its “tick-tock” I went to Walmart to purchase a new watch.

I was feeling extravagant and decided the $20.00 watches I normally bought needed an upgrade, so I purchased a beautiful $42.00 watch.

It was loaded with extras like sharing the day of the month as well as the day of the week. Cool!

Of course, I immediately ran into a technology problem when I sat down and tried to set the day of the month and the day of the week.

Especially setting the days of the week which should be simple. There are only seven days! Right?

So, I’m trying to locate Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But all I’m seeing are words like Lunes, Martes, Mi’ercoles, Jueves, Viernes, Sabado and Domingo.

Then memories from my undergraduate degree at UMM came flooding back.  We were required to have a year of a foreign language.

I did not want to study a foreign language so I did not study Spanish as hard as I should have.

I’m sure I learned the seven days of the week in Spanish, but my lack of studying prevented those seven words from being cemented into my brain. 🙁

So now I was the proud owner of a Spanish speaking wristwatch!

I hope I’m not offending any of you Hispanics who may be reading this blog, but I don’t want a Hispanic speaking wristwatch! I want an English- speaking wristwatch!

So, I got a new English- speaking wristwatch.

Now I am stuck with a Hispanic speaking wristwatch.

But that was no problem. I am a generous person so I will find a Hispanic living in Wheaton and gift them my almost new Hispanic watch.

My wife Kathie was staying in the Wheaton Care Center at the time, so as I visited Kathie, I began scouting the care center’s work force. Some of the employees were Hispanic.

Who looked like someone that would treasure a Hispanic reading wristwatch?

As I inquired, I discovered something that I did not know. Workers in these facilities are not allowed to accept gifts.

I asked several CNA’s and nurses about accepting my gift, but they were true rule followers. They all rejected my generous gift.

I was hopeful I’d find one of those rule-breakers. After teaching forty-two years I’d had a few encounters with rule breakers.

But not in the Care Center.

I figured if I asked enough people one of them would have listened intently to my request and leaned into me and quietly replied, “I’m driving the red Ford in the parking lot. The doors are not locked. Thank you very much, my son will love the watch.”

But that did not happen.

I’m trying to downsize the amount of furniture in our house, so I decided to sell the huge entertainment center in the living room. I advertised it on the Facebook selling site.

Ana responded and when she and her husband came to transport the big, heavy entertainment center I was pleasantly surprised to discover they were a Hispanic family.

They were so Hispanic they did not speak English!

So, in our attempt to communicate I resorted to my UMM Spanish class and used such words as “gracias”, ” muy bien”, “no ablo espanol”.

I’m sure if my college professor was living (he would have to be at least 108 years old!) he would puff out his chest with pride.

I did not have my Hispanic speaking watch with me, so I wasn’t able to present them with a gift.

But as it turned out the Hispanic couple was destined to get the watch.

My entertainment center sold so quickly I decided to sell our old dining room table and chairs on the same Facebook site.

Guess who responded first?

Yep, it was Ana again. 🙂

So, when they came the second time to pick up the table and chairs, I met them with a piece of paper on which I had written in Spanish, “This watch has the days of the week in Spanish, I cannot read Spanish. So, I offer the watch to you for free.”

At first, I think the husband thought I wanted to know if he were wearing a watch because he pulled down both shirt sleeves to show he was not wearing a watch.

Finally, his face lit up with a big smile when he realized I was giving him a free watch.

I felt so good after bringing joy into that family’s life I got to thinking. Maybe I could brush up on my Spanish and become an interpreter for non-English speaking Hispanics.

But then again, it’s been 58 years since I attempted to learn Spanish and I can still only use three Spanish words!

I wonder if French would be easier?

Until next time.  🙂