my big break

so my old grad school roommate misty and her husband kris were in town this weekend, staying with friends adam and michelle. we decided to have dinner at the stinking rose restaurant in north beach, san francisco's little italy. on the way up columbus ave. to caffe trieste for coffee. a woman walked up to misty and asked if she spoke spanish. she said she didn't but pointed to me. yikes! the woman was a reporter with univision, a spanish television station broadcast nationally. which means my dad could watch it and hear me butcher the beautiful spanish language (i forget words in other languages when i am under pressure and stress- call it performance anxiety). so the reporter tells me she is doing a story on bars and people who put drugs in other people's drinks. hmm. we were just leaving the stinking rose, a restaurant known more for its excessive garlic than excessive drinking, and she's asking me?! i told her i don't really go to bars. but it didn't matter. she had a spanish speaker and she was like a rabid dog whose mouth is clenched to a person's leg, not letting them go until the jaw is manually unclenched. the hidden camera came into view at this point, bright light shining at my quizzical visage. she asks the question; i respond. she then asks me to repeat my answer, since i had not been given enough direction that we were already recording.

reporter: "when you are in a bar, what do you do with your drink?"
az: "um (in spanish) i hold onto my drink; i don't even set it down because i don't want someone putting drugs into it. i don't accept drinks from strangers. um no way. "

she told me she wanted to tape us walking away. i was kind of thinking well, i don't know that my posterior is the best angle from which to shoot me. so we walked on to get a cafe mocha, leftovers in hand. my brush with latin-american fame.