Come On

After three months in Canada, I should have been able to invite someone into a room.

This was not advanced English.

A woman came to my door to ask a few questions for some kind of survey. I opened the door, stepped aside, and tried to say the most basic possible sentence.

“Come in.”

That is what I meant.

What I actually said was:

“Come on. Come on.”

Twice.

The mistake became clear to me almost immediately, which is the worst possible timing. Early enough to understand the disaster, late enough to prevent it.

She answered something.

I heard, “I am married.”

For one beautiful second, the entire situation rearranged itself in my head. I had apparently opened my apartment door, enthusiastically said “Come on! Come on!” to a stranger, and received an immediate marital-status defense.

I had no romantic intention.

I barely had the correct preposition.

Living in another language teaches you that knowing a phrase and finding it at the exact second you need it are different skills. You can read technical documents, understand grammar, and survive long conversations.

Then the doorbell rings and English leaves the building.

The most useful part of the experience was what happened afterward.

Nothing terrible.

The world continued. The conversation somehow survived. My English did not collapse permanently.

But I never confused those two phrases again.

Years of vocabulary exercises could not guarantee that.

One embarrassing doorway did.