On the other hand, my on-the-fly comprehension takes humiliating hits all the time. I just got back from a fairly unsuccessful trip to Easy (that's what the store's called, in English, but they say it "eee-see"). It's a sort of Home Depot/Walmart with groceries. On the way there, a businessy guy stopped to ask me...something. No idea what. So I had to just shrug and say I didn't know. The sad part is that I know that neighborhood fairly well and might actually have known the answer if I'd had a clue what he was asking.
Once I got there, I was looking for a cream to etch glass (I want to frost part of the kitchen window). Well, I managed that question pretty well (they don't carry it), but I don't get points for being able to say "acid cream that etches glass" because I practiced at home.
Then at the end of an aisle, an Easy girl was demonstrating adhesive tabs that temporarily hang up pictures and kitchen gadgets and so on. I got that fine, and accepted her free sample of two adhesive thingies. But then she added something mysterious and I nodded OK and she took me to a board where a bunch of the tabs were holding up hooks and so on. I was already pretty much over the whole idea, but she seemed quite insistent that I try one. I figured it was easier to just go along, so I picked a small hook and pulled its tab. It was supposed to come off, but it didn't. She noodged me to pull harder so I did and the tab stretched almost to snapping until finally the hook came off. She looked at the back and cheerfully said "you won!" and handed me a baseball cap. I was mainly happy because I know the word for cap. So I said "Ah, a cap!" which is actually a pretty stupid thing to say when someone gives you a cap.
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