For English, Press 1

I don’t want to press “1”.

If I call my electric company, I have to press “1” for English.
If I call my phone company, I have to press “1” for English.
The same goes for my bank, my mortgage company, etc. etc.

I was in the pediatrician’s office a few months ago with my nephew. The cartoon network was on. The cutsie little cartoon characters were intermittently speaking in English and then in Spanish.

This is the United States of America for cryin’ out loud!

I found out recently that English is not the “official language” of the United States of America – at least not at the federal level. It is, however, the official language in 25 of the 50 states, and there is a grass roots effort to make it the official national language as well. (Who’d have thought that would ever be necessary!)

The most recent statistics I found say that 82% of the population of this country speaks only English at home – that’s from age 5 on up. Now as far as my publicly educated brain can determine, that means that only 16% of the population speaks another primary language. So why do I have to press “1” for English in over 90% of the business phone calls I engage in!!?? It couldn’t be indoctrination, could it? It couldn’t be that the government is trying to acclimate us to the inevitable?

By law (key words here), in order to become a naturalized citizen, one must be able to speak English. But hey, if you don’t follow one law, why should anyone expect you follow another? If you aren’t in this country legally, why learn the language? You don’t have to speak English to apply for welfare. The government employees will meet you on your level – in your language – so you can get your rightly deserved free meal ticket. After all, you worked hard running, walking, swimming and climbing over barriers to get to this country. The least the government can do is agree to support you for the rest of your life now that you’re here.

Guess I’d better go and brush up on my Spanish. I suspect that the new North American Union is going to come out with an official language, and I’ve got a hunch it’s not going to be English. Might offend someone.

Press 1 for English
Press 2 for Spanish
Press 3 for Arabic
Press 4 for all other languages

Or hang up and get lost. You probably don’t fit in anyway.

After all, it’s not your country anymore.