Par le vous what?

In 1991, I was nineteen and had just moved to Miami. I was staying with my dad and his wife while I was getting on my proverbial feet. My dad and step mom were going to a movie: Cyrano De Bergerac starring George Depardieu. They asked if I wanted to go along. I did. The long and the short of the movie is that a guy woos a girl by speaking French. Or, at least at 19, that's what I got out of it.

Coming home from the movie that night I had an epiphany. The only thing that was keeping me from getting all the ladies was the fact that I didn't speak French. If I knew French, then I would find a girl, impress her, and make her mine. So that was that. I was already planning on going to college for my AA degree and decided that for an elective I would take Beginner's French. I think it's important to note, and you may have heard this before, Miami does not have a large French speaking population. Spanish, yet another language that had evaded me, was (and is) quite common 'round these parts. So, do I take French or Spanish? As my dad pointed out when he was helping me choose, by using logic, one would naturally conclude that if they are going to use an elective course for a foreign language, it should be one that is spoken commonly where they live. So, naturally, I signed up for French class.

It was an accelerated night class and at the end of the course I got a 'C'. I still couldn't ask a girl out in French, nor would I be able to ask where the facilities were if she had agreed to said date. I met with my advisor who advised (funny how they do that) I should take something else for the next semester, like, maybe Spanish. She listed out all of the pros and cons and made a very valid argument. So, naturally, I enrolled in Beginner's French II.

I was really struggling. Or, as they would say in French, "La souris est aveugle." But lucky for me, there was a girl in this class who seemed very sharp and was picking up French quite easily. I figured I'd ask her to help me with the lessons. It didn't hurt that she was very cute. She agreed to help me but it was hard for me to keep my attention on the material. Did I mention she was cute? Well, at the end of the course my grade was no longer a 'C'. It was a 'D'. But I did manage to meet a cute girl. She even agreed to go out with me. We continued to date and seventeen years later she'd be standing here reading over my shoulder if she wasn't in our bed with a cold and 101 degree fever.

So, did I learn French? No. But did my plan work? You betcha!

And in case you were wondering, "Par le vous Francais" is French for "How I met my wife".