Anything You Can Do, I Can Do... Sorta

I always hate feeling like an idiot. But I hate it most when I set myself up for my own failure. When I was in third grade, we moved and I had to switch to a new school. And in my first day of music class, we were singing the English version of "Frère Jacques". And I raised my hand and blurted out, "Hey! I know this song in another language!" My music teacher waved me off and proceeded to lead the group in the second verse, which was actually the French version. Then she turned to me and said, "What were you saying, stupid new kid?" (Or some version of that.) Then I had to explain that I knew the French version that we just sang. So I embarrassed myself horribly on my first day.

And I didn't get any better later on. In high school I took French. (Shut up, it's because my sister took it and I knew she could help me get an A.) And one day, I met a French lady (I could tell because of her beret and her tiny, curled mustache). So I decided it would be good to introduce myself in French! So I said "Hi, my name is Taylor," in my best French. Her response was, "Oh, ll fait beau de rencontrer une personne française. M'appelle Chantille et Windows sept est mon idée!" So I had to backpedal really quickly and take out my translation book so I could figure out how to say "my bad" in French.

And it keeps on happening to me. I told my friend recently that I love playing guitar and that I used to be kinda good, but never an expert. And it's been a few years since I've played but I suggested that we should jam together (and I found out that I'm not cool enough to use the word "jam" in that context). So I went to his house and I could only remember three chords and the intro to one Metallica song. And when I played them, he joined in with an insane solo riff that was at least 100 times better than I've ever been. So I felt like an idiot again.

So I've learned my lesson: If it involves music or French or both, I need to keep my mouth shut.