Bi-

Worked at the local furniture store for Black Friday. As I was assisting a customer, I heard Slam, one of our sales associates, respond to another sales associate in Spanish. I don’t  recall the question asked of him, but his response was, “Sí.” “Impressive,” I commented, “Slam, I didn’t realize you were bilingual.” “I’m bi-lot of things,” Slam replied and walked away.

As business slowed down I decided to read the dictionary in an attempt to brush up on my unilingual skills. Instead of starting at the beginning, I opted to just open the book and learn from whichever letter/page was there. To my surprise, I opened to a page full of ‘bi-.’ Due to the irony of the situation, I decided to make a list of the ‘bi-‘ things Slam may be.

Several minutes later Slam returned to my work area and I handed him the list. “What is this?” he asked. “A list of a lot of things you might bi, I mean be,” I replied. A customer was standing nearby and wanted in on the conversation, so I shared the story with her. “What bi- words do you have on the list?” she asked Slam. Slam started reading the list to her, “Bipolar, biracial, biased, biconvex, bituminous, bienniel…” when she interrupted with a pressing question. “What about bisexual?” “Oh yes,” Slam replied, “top of the list, I just didn’t read that one outloud.”

Later in the day, Slam returned to my work area and asked, “What was the deal with that customer – asking all of those questions of me, being so curious?” I replied, “She isn’t just curious Slam, she’s bi-curious.”