Talk French to me.

So I work in sea of cubicles. The guy next to me has got to be the most entertaining cube-neighbor I have ever had the privilege of sitting near. He has lots of visitors who all seem to look pretty important. It makes me feel less important because my cube visitors are always peppy and smiley and have something completely non-work related to say. His visitors dress in suits and ties (we work in a business casual dress code environment) and have serious faces and draw diagrams and other important looking stuff on the smart board that is on the wall in between our cubicles. I don't listen to what they say-they usually lose me at the first acronym. "The CTSB blah blah blah blah blah blah blah."

Today, however, I took note of cube neighbor because his phone conversation took an odd turn. The first and last 5 minutes of his conversation were purely in English. In the middle of the conversation, however, he started speaking in French poorly. And then he started spelling something. He did that thing where people try to sound authentic and use their horrible foreign language accents while speaking in the foreign language but it's like watching a movie where the person couldn't quite nail that accent down. Okay, but seriously. I am trying to imagine who was on the other line.

My first thought was probably predictable: Tall, thin man with curly drawn on mustache, striped shirt, red neck scarf, beret. He needs to talk to Pepe because Pepe is his French teacher and he decided he needed an emergency French lesson in the middle of his work day. Touche, cube neighbor, you DID need that lesson as your French was -yes- that terrible. Good luck and I hope you make it to Paris and find a lovely young lady like Audrey Hepburn who happens to also speak English but you can still impress her with your soon-to-be good French.

Or maybe cube neighbor is married. Just checked. There IS a ring. So, maybe he was speaking to his wife and she was all, "Talk FRENCH to me." And he was trying frantically to remember every bit of French he learned in High School (which looks like it's been a few years for him) and he just started spewing out letters because he remembered the cute alphabet song his French teacher taught him. Wife, satisfied with his attempt, tells him she's looking forward to his homecoming and will be armed with a striped shirt, beret, red scarf, and a marker upon his arrival.

He could be selling secrets to the French! Hopefully he doesn't spill the beans on how striped shirts, berets, red scarves, and drawn on mustaches are no longer in style. Or perhaps never were in style. Look at him over there...TYPING...sounds like he's typing in FRENCH. *typing in French sounds like surrender. How dare he?! No, couldn't be this. He is way too happy to sell secrets. Now he's on the phone again and laughing. People who sell secrets don't laugh in that tone.

Based on his level of apparent happiness, I vote for Wife scenario.