Culturally Speaking 2012 West Coast Midnight Run. In Other Words Ayuda

West Coast Midnight Run™ is a copyrighted publication of Citadel Consulting Group LLC

If you have ever visited California with a friend from Portugal and happened to wander into a Pavilions Place or an Ace Hardware store you may have noticed a special checkout section managed entirely by automated scanning and weighing stations, complete with voice command prompt, surveillance cameras and minimal support personnel for processing your purchase from the store.

My friend enjoyed searching for Portuguese and selected the Spanish language automated assistant. Other languages are also available such as Mandarin and Vietnamese.

The Spanish prompt concludes by giving you the greeting “Ayuda” right after payment.

Being a vernacular specialist from the Mediterranean region who also interned with the United Nations during my post graduate program at a business school in Europe, I immediately confused Ayuda with Aida, the well know musical classic and believed the automated machine was offering discount tickets for the event.

My friend nodded and whispered something I could barely understand. People were staring at us as they lined up in the queue. My friend

turned on his Portuguese charm and Old World knowledge believing himself Julio Iglesias Jr.

“It’s not Ben? Yo-da? Is it you?” prompting me to stare at him in dismay. No time for jokes, not now please.

Ayyyy-Yuddda he intoned with a marvelous accent, he smile and told me it means “to write it down” or jot it down on paper.

Huh? Please no time to play tourist, I tugged at his shirt sleeve, motioning to him we should not drag along, some people are busy here.

He said something about thighs or sighs or sights and then “ayy-edia” smiled and said “which hand do you