>The takeaway from this case: everybody should learn Spanish :). Thank you for sharing.

Avoiding Spanish is difficult if you live in California.

As a child I'd learned the phrases "Yo no se habla español" (I do not speak Spanish) and "Yo no comprendo español" (I do not understand Spanish) -- but apparently my pronunciation was too good (i.e. I didn't sound "gringo" enough) -- so folks assumed I was joking when I said it and continued talking to me as if I did understand Spanish.