Free The Potty Mouth at the Table by Laurie Notaro

he’s a perfectly willing, minute-in-stature adultwho would stand on a street corner while his kidneys shrivel because it’s better than the circus. How would I know?
    I will ask him, I decided, before I do or say anything, I will ask him, but that just provides another problem. I’d taken Spanish for a total of six years, but never got beyond Spanish 102 and retained little of what I once knew. Pulling out my trusty iPhone, I solved the problem in three seconds flat, and frankly, it didn’t even come close to ringing a bell: ¿Cuántos años tienes?
    How old are you?
    ¿Cuántos años tienes?
    ¿Cuántos años tienes?
    ¿Cuántos años tienes? I said over and over again in my head as I opened the car door.
    ¿Cuántos años tienes?
    Then I stopped suddenly. If he says anything aside from ocho and movie titles, I’m lost, I only know ocho, and the only reason I even know that is because we used to have a ghost in our house who used to move the tuning dial on the radio to the Spanish station every morning. We’d be woken up by the same commercial for mattresses that yelled out a phone number without mercy, ocho ocho ocho ocho ocho ocho OCHO !
    I don’t have time to memorize ¿Cuántos años tienes? andnumbers one through eighteen, although I figured that should be self-explanatory, as in ochoteen.
    “Problem solved!” I said, making the sound of snapping fingers in my head. I may not know his language enough for a reply, but I will indicate that he should answer by holding up his fingers. They must teach kids in every language how to do that when they’re small.
    I practiced in my head: ¿Cuántos años tienes? then start flashing your fingers.
    Excellent. Excellent! I would say, getting very excited.
    I closed the car door and started walking across the parking lot toward the corner, the twenty-dollar bill folded up in one hand and the bottle of water in my purse. Surprisingly, I was not the only one on the sidewalk; several people stood nearby, waiting to cross the street, so I really didn’t look out of place as I approached the little boy with the luggage repair sign.
    I stopped in front of him and pulled my hand out of my pocket, palming the twenty. And then I summoned up all the nerve I had been telling myself for the last ten minutes that I had and stood there for several seconds before the boy’s eyes met mine.
    “ ¿Cuántos años tienes? ” I asked slowly, flashing the five fingers on my left hand.
    His eyes grew wide. He said nothing.
    “ ¿Cuántos años tienes? ” I said again, and flashed my fingers louder, but his eyes just grew wider even still. I could tell by the terror that spread over his face instantly what was going through his mind.
    Aha! I thought to myself. The luggage repair people have covered all of their bases! I get it! If a strange person says anything, they told you to be quiet! Don’t answer or the police will take you away!
    “It’s okay! It’s okay!” I said, trying to reassure him and making hand movements that in no way indicated age or requested to see his ID or passport. They were simply shaky hand movements, which I was sure, had the undocumented shoe been on the other foot, I would have understood as: “I am here to help you, young man. I am not moments away from deporting you back to your oppressed and futureless homeland.”
    However, since we were lacking the proper avenue of communication, the look on his face shot from simple fear to utter terror, and in turn caused me to panic instead of turning to my iPhone for a helpful translation.
    “It’s okay,” I tried to reassure him again. “I just wanted to know how old you are!”
    Then I pulled the bottle of water out of my purse for some unknown reason. I suppose I felt that would prove that I was a helper with honest intentions, or maybe it wasbecause I figured border patrol wasn’t exactly known for handing out refreshments on a particularly scorching day.
    Now the people waiting for the crosswalk signal