've been experimenting with the "Formal You" lately. I figured it was about time. For two months, I completely ignored the thing, treated it like an unsolicited phone call.
"The Formal You? Umm, yeah, we already bought one."
See, as you know, we don't have this "Formal You" in English. All you's are equal to us. And when you are groping for the verb and the pronunciation, you just don't need the anxiety presented by the Formal You. So I went about, unintentionally insulting South Americans with my gross American familiarity. "Hey Familiar You," I seemed to be saying, "I know you -- you crazy street vendor, you hotel manager, you taxi driver. We're pals!"
I'm sure they're used to it. But I thought the time was ripe to try my hand at a little "Usted + the third-person singular," as we like to call it in the biz.
So I walk into a bookstore in La Paz.
"Does the Formal You have books in English?" I ask timidly. But the old man behind the counter just stares, blinks. I want to lean close and tell him, "It was my first time with the Formal You and all. How did I do?"
So that he can smile and say, "Wow, I never would have guessed!"
But instead, his face is saying, "Don't think for a second that the Formal You got that right, honey." His face is saying, "Why doesn't the Formal You just point and grunt like the others?" He waves his hand off to the side and returns to his book.
The Formal Me takes a look at the book selection. It is roundly pathetic. It is, in fact, the worst collection of English-language books I have ever seen in my life. It's not just trash -- it's trash I've never heard of, pulp books from 1975, alongside books on learning DOS and sensual massage and 10 copies of something called "Christina's Craving," with the soft-focus picture of a woman in a lace teddy, looking like she just finished work on a Whitesnake video. ("Having everything didn't keep Christina from wanting more..."). Disheartened and not wanting to talk to the Formal Anyone, I walk past the McDonald's and the life-size Britney Spears poster and a kiosk selling Pooh bears, one of which is inscrutably wearing a hat that says "Jose," and I settle in for a night at the cinema.
"Thanks to the Formal You," says the woman in the ticket booth.
"And to the Formal You, too," I say, feeling like Ms. Smartypants -- only it's safe to assume that Ms. Smartypants wouldn't blow 20 Bolivianos on "Tomb Raider," one of the most extravagantly stupid films in some time. Oh well. The Formal You wins some, the Formal You loses some.