About 60% of my curses are in Italian and forty are in English when I use a self-checkout at the CVS. They have two people over there just to fix everything that goes wrong.
My husband always uses the self check out claiming it is faster but he always leaves fuming because the stupid thing did not work right and you have to wait for the poor clerk to come and fix it.
I always use the cashier and by pass the whole thing.
The exception is if I have just a couple of items, then I might risk the self checkout.
I saw this issue at a few places recently. This grocery store I went to last week had a problem with one of the registers. I got to where i swiped my credit card after scanning all items, and then the machine locked up. I had to wait for a person who then took me to a different register to re scan all my items. A normally 1 minute or less transaction ended up taking over 10 minutes.
I curse in Spanish usually
Once at govt line for car registration and I uttered joda....the eff word in Spanish ....a Latino lady turned around and laughed and said “ ok so Papa Noel knows how to swear in Spanish...careful”
I was white long beard then....I was ashamed ...Papa Noel is Santa Claus
She was scolding me kindly....I didn’t know she was Spanish speaking
But I realized I was wrong
Once in Barranquilla I called a Colombian buddy payaso...thinking it could be used like joker....he looked at me weird
It means clown....his comely buxom Cuban wife took me aside..and warned me in her perfect English that in Colombia calling someone a clown was disrespectful...God bless her
She and I were close....not sexually of course she liked my southern politeness...she hugged me close one night and said how much she appreciated we could hang out and I didn’t hit on her or stare at her chest like all her husbands Colombia buddies did
I laughed and said wel hell I notice your pechugas too I just try not to show it...lol
She started laughing f so hard she about wet herself
She said “mi gringito.....pechuga is chicken breast ....of course she regaled the world with my faux pas forever..for many laughs over aguadiente
Breasts in Spanish is senos...for the record
I was fond of her..if she hadn’t been married to my socio I’d been all over it
Second languages can be problematic