Translation, please.

I didn't enjoy lying, but my situation was desperate: I was a twenty-something psychology major, fresh out of college, and wracking my brain on how to find a job. I had my hopes set high from the minute I was handed my diploma, only to have them come crashing down when I realized that I couldn't just snap my fingers and be behind the desk at a therapy center. I needed an actual, paying job. Soon. I had college debts and rent on my apartments to pay for. So, that was how I ended up in the office of the CEO of some bank, the name of which I don't even remember, passing myself off as a professional interpreter with a Master's in foreign language. And before I knew it, I was shaking the hand of my new boss, who could have been Miss America and had the most perfect eyelashes I'd ever seen. I was then told to be back on Tuesday for a board meeting where I was to interpret for the half of the board that was Spanish and didn't speak a word of English.

I went home that night feeling triumphant and woke up the next morning feeling like crap. I knew how to say 'hi' in Spanish, but with four years of psyche studies under my belt, where the only time I'd ever tried to understand a foreign language was a poem that I was given freshman year, my first impulse was to panic.

I knew nothing about translation. Nothing about the Spanish dialect. I was doomed.

I had to force myself to calm down before my poor, high-strung landlady found me dead of a heart attack. I was a psychologist, after all. I was supposed to know how to think clearly. So, I did what I did best, and with four days until Tuesday and nowhere else I needed to be, I hit the books.

Did you know that Spanish has different ways to use articles depending on if the object is masculine or feminine? Or that there, like, twenty ways to use verbs? I didn't. And I was a pretty sorry sight come Tuesday. I'd somehow managed to survive the weekend and crawl into the next week having slept only 8 hours, my head swirling with the funny ways to use verbs and articles, and my stomach halfway to non-existence after consuming nine boxes of Oreos in the time it would have taken a sane person to consume one.

The sweet young secretary who told me what door to go in for the board meeting had to suffer through looking at a frizzy haired, droopy eyed girl with one pink earing and one purple and makeup that looked like I'd slept in it, which I had.

When my Miss America worthy boss, also named Anne Francis, first saw me, I'm pretty sure she chocked on her calorie free sparkling water. Everyone else just gave me that same look my ultra-trendy aunt used to give me. The kind where she was looked like she was trying not to feel sorry for me in my Walmart brand t-shirt and stained jeans.

I sat down uncomfortably in the chair next to a guy with greasy skin and dandruff coating his black-clad shoulders. If it wasn't June, I would have thought he'd been standing out in the snow.

Anne Francis stood up. Her grey suit hugged in at the waist in a way that I found both flattering and extremely annoying. Why did she look so put together and I looked so... not put together?

"Good morning, everyone," Anne began. Her light, twinkling voice was both soothing and seductive. I saw more than one pair of eyes in the room leave her face and travel down the rest of her body. "I trust you all know why I've called this meeting. But before we get down to the nitty, gritty, let me introduce you to Susan, our new translator."

All heads in the room turned to me, after Anne pointed in my direction. I received a few smiles, but mostly blank stares. Naturally, considering most of them hadn't understood a word of what my boss had just said. I offered a little wave. I got nothing in return. Tough crowd.

"Susan come up here and stand by me, please," said Anne, voice dripping off of her tongue like honey. I stood up and tentatively made my way around the table to where my boss stood. She leaned over to me and whispered, "They,'' she gestured to the left side of the table, "don't understand any English, and everyone else, including me, doesn't understand a word of Spanish. All I need you to do is translate the Spanish into English and the English into Spanish, okay? And don't mess this up. If this meeting goes wrong, we're out some of our biggest donors."

I nodded.

Right. Good. Ditto. I could do this.

Anne cleared her throat and began with: "I want you all to know that I haven't called you here to tell you you've all gone bankrupt." She smiled and laughed at her own joke, as did the other English speakers in the room.

Okay, I thought, I know this. Wait? What was bankrupt in Spanish? It couldn't be as simple as bankruptio, could it?

I tried to look confident as I did my job. "Uh... Yo..."

My brain went blank. So, not really thinking, I said the first thing that came to mind. It was just a bit of what I'd actually remembered from my weekend study marathon.

"Buenes dias. Cuiero llamarte cerdo."

A gasp erupted from the mouths of the Spanish speakers in the room. I translated what I'd just said in my head. When I realized that I'd called someone a pig, I threw my hands over my mouth.

My Miss America worthy boss turned to me. "What did I say? They look offended. It was just a joke."

I smiled. My heart was pounding, and my palms were sweating so bad I'm pretty sure my pants thought my hands were melting. "I don't know, ma'am. Maybe they hate the word bankrupt." I shrugged and prayed she didn't catch on.

Internally, I was slapping myself. What a situation to get myself into.

I resigned myself to death. Bold, dark letters, the headline of a newspaper, flashed through my head: "Dishonest interpreter dead at the hands of beautiful boss after calling clients pigs."

I pushed images of myself, sprawled, broken and bruised in a dark alleyway, out of my mind and resigned myself to the task at hand: to finish this meeting as best as I could and book it to some unheard-of island in the Pacific.

I uncomfortably met the eyes of the Spanish-speaking half of the room. I was relieved to find that most of them looked amused, although one or two appeared extremely offended.

"Alright, well," said Anne, "I'm so glad all of you could make it..."

My boss than proceeded to launch into such a long stream of words that I simply stood there, probably looking stupid. I might have tried to translate, but it was at the risk of calling someone a cow or dog or something. Why, after the insurmountable hours I spent studying, was I so unable to remember a word of the Spanish dialect? Except of course for the random offenses involving animals that kept pushing their way to the front of my head.

My boss abruptly ended her speech. "What's wrong?" she hissed in my ear. "Why aren't you translating for me?"

"I..." I wished, as so many people have, that the floor would open up and swallow me. Or better yet, maybe an Angel of the Lord would enter the room and carry me up to heaven. I was not the church going type of girl, but once I prayed for a dog and was given a dachshund and had ever since been convinced that the good Lord was on my side.

"Susan?" My ultra-hot, super trendy boss had taken on the tone of a leotard wearing Karen.

I looked down. "Okay. Okay. I'm going to be honest with you... I don't speak Spanish."

I peered back up into my boss's face, which had started to contort with rage. "You... don't... speak... Spanish.'' Not a question. A horror-stricken statement.

My throat constricted. "Um... you got it, boss," I squeaked, offering her two thumbs up and the sweetest smile I had.

My boss's beautiful face now looked something like a mugshot on America's Most Wanted. Embarrassed. Enraged. Murderous.

"Do you know how important this meeting is?" her voice was now loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. "And do you know how you have screwed up what could have been one of the biggest raises of my career?"

She looked about ready to pull out her hair. Or mine.

Probably mine.

I looked around the room. Amusement. Pity. Slight annoyance. Mostly mouths that looked ready to burst into laughter. At least on the right side of the table. The Spanish speaking side just looked confused.

Anne turned to face the room and let out a breathy laugh. "Ha! Wouldn't you know it? It turns out Susan hear doesn't know how to speak Spanish. Funny, right?"

No laughter.

"Well, taking into consideration these unfortunate present circumstances, I'm afraid we'll have to reschedule this meeting for another time."

"Anne, do you know how far some of these men and women have flown to get here?" Said some bald dude seated at the opposite end of the table from me.

My boss nodded. "Yes, Pete, I'm well aware." Extreme annoyance crept into her voice. "I'm well aware of the trouble this has caused. And all of you can be assured that it will not happen again."

I don't really remember anything else expect that three hours later I was seated on my bed, listening to my Miss America worthy boss, who now sounded about as put together as a politician, scream at me through my phone.

"You're a psychologist?! Tell me, Susan, what use there would have been for a psychologist at a bank? Sheesh! You just lost me big bucks, Susan. You're fired, of course. Completely up in flames!!"

"Okay.'' My voice was small.

"And you understand my anger? Because if you don't, you lying psycho, then I'm going to do everything I can to make you understand. Some of those men and women you saw at the meeting were so annoyed with the inconvenience that they've dropped their names form our list of donors. Susan, I suggest you move far, far away. Like to Ohio. Maybe I won't be able to get to you there!"

I couldn't really understand my emotions at that point. I wasn't embarrassed anymore, mostly resigned to this fate. I wasn't sad either, one the contrary, I was glad to be done with my gorgeous boss. Nor was I annoyed. I felt only a slight desperation. I still had no job.

"Well, ma'am." I knew that what I would say next would probably be the last straw, but it was worth an attempt. "I do understand your anger, but..." I took a deep breath, and squared my shoulders, "I am still in need of a job. Would you be my reference?"

Silence. And then the click of the phone being hung up.

Well, since I'd realized the importance of translation, I decided to learn to translate anger. I was a psychologist, after all. It was my job to understand the almost understandable.