numberblind

So this past week I had a medical visit for work and it was fine except it was plagued with numbers.

Numbers are tricky for me in French. They require a bit of math and my brain just doesn't work that fast. For example I had a standard color-blind test where you have to look at different colored dots and say the number you see. I could see the number fine. What was hard was coming up with the number.

Lady: What number do you see?
Me: [72! Wait that's 60 + 12 in french, sixty is soixante...]
Lady: [staring at me expectantly]
Me: [and what's 12? It's one of those weird ones that doesn't fit the pattern, douce?)
Lady: [staring at me like I'm color blind...]
Me: [No it's douze...]
Lady: [starts to pick up her pencil to note colorblindness]
Me: Soixante douze!
Lady: ok, the next one?
Me: [sigh]

We went through this exercise a couple of times before she was satisfied I wasn't colorblind, just stupid.

But that wasn't the worst part. The worst was when she asked me my address which includes the number 94 which is one of the most complicated numbers in French, nay, in any language known to man.

It's 80 + 14. Not only that 80 is actually 4 * 20. So it's 4 (*) 20 (+) 14. In French.

Lady: You're address?
Me: Quatre...
Lady: [writes down 4]
Me: No, it's quatre vingts...
Lady: [scratches out 4 and writes 80]
Me: No, it's quatre-vingts quatorze.
Lady: [looks at me like, are you done talking?]
Me: [smile of self-satisfaction that I actually got it right]