The Texas Roadhouse and the Rosetta Stone

My sister is awesome and I love her quite dearly, but we are two completely opposite people. I mean, completely. She looks like our mother, I look like our father. She makes poor emotional decisions, I make poor financial decisions. She's good at math and I'm... not. She dates guys who are alternately in and out of jail and/or the military, I date guys who are in and out of bands and/or New York City. She has two kids and well, I'm minorly terrified of most children, except, I guess the children of my close friends and family. One panic-inducing occasion at my old office had a six month old baby mistaking me for her mother. I think I actually ran away from the crying child and hid in the bathroom until they left.

Three years ago, Ashley, my sister was dating this guy who she'd known for a long time. He was graduating boot camp, and she'd just had her first baby, my nephew Andrew. Unbeknown to me, she went down to Georgia for his graduation, and he proposed marriage. I wasn't even positive that they were back together when she called me to tell me the news. He was stationed in Germany, they were going to get married at City Hall, pack up the kid and go with him. A number of things happened between the proposal and the deployment and they broke up, but these are some highlights from the conversation we had:

Me: Oh my god, are you kidding? Really, how'd he do it, do you have a ring? Oh my god, Ashley. This is insane.

Ashley: (clearly smiling on the other line) No, no ring yet... We just kind of... decided.

Me: Well, where were you  when he did it?

Ashley: Oh my god, Amanda, we were at this really nice restaurant- (picturing white tablecloth, candlelight, Alex in his fatigues, the baby sleeping next to them with soft jazz music playing in the background, no booze because they were both under 21) -it's called the Texas Roadhouse.

Me: (silence. Don't get me wrong, I really love the Texas Roadhouse. Really. Their baked sweet potatoes are amazing, and they give you hot, fresh rolls. They serve Blue Moon and you have to ride a saddle if it's your birthday. I've always had a great time there, except for that one time I found my server crying in the bathroom.)

Me: Ashley. Oh my god. The Texas Roadhouse is NOT a nice restaurant. It's a chain, like Applebee's or the Olive Garden.

Ashley: Oh. Well, anyway, our food was really good.

(a few minutes later, as I'm processing the idea, thinking about Ashley and the baby living on the base, being an army wife, making a life for themselves...)

Me: So, if he's stationed in Germany, and you guys are living on the base, I wonder if that means you're under American jurisdiction or German jurisdiction. Because if it's German, you can drink. But, there probably aren't any bars on the base so...

Ashley: There are probably like, neighboring towns we can go hang out in if he has leave or whatever.

Me: But you don't speak German.

Ashley. But there are neighboring towns.

Me: Ashley. You don't speak German.

Ashley: What do you mean?

(silence)

Me: Ashley....   German is a language spoken in Germany. Like French or Spanish.

Ashley, brow furrowed, ignoring my laughter: Oh. I thought they just spoke English, but with an accent... (pause) I might have to get that Rosetta Stone thing.

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One of the funniest parts of this story, I think, is that she knew what the Rosetta Stone program was, but probably has no idea what the significance of the name is. (Please don't let this story reflect my thoughts on the Lewiston Public School system, or judge my sister for not knowing German was a language.) She has her GED and is taking classes at the Central Maine Community College, where she'll probably end up being a really awesome, funny, caring nurse.