When I was in my early 20's, my best friend and I decided to move to New York. We had gone to college in Washington D.C. and decided we wanted to experience the beat and hussle of NYC. 

Bridget is from Ohio and, as she jokingly states, in our circle of friends she was the first "real" American friend many of us had ever had. We still fondly remember many of the emergency "meetings" we had about severe miscommunications that could have ended really badly. In fact, my relationship with Bridget was, in many ways, the beginning of the intense, bicultural, identity-searching adventure I had in college. 

I had grown up in New York - Yonkers specifically - and as my best friend, it was my duty and honor to offer her my family home. At this point, I saw Bridget as my sister, and she had known me long enough to "get my family." However, in my deep appreciation for Bridget's cultural sensitivity, I forgot that there were things I still had to explain to her. She was NOT, in fact, Cuban by osmosis and, at that time, had not had enough exposure to understand that words such as "coffee" did not mean the same to all people - even if they were spoken in English. 

The first month we lived with my family, things ran pretty smoothly. While us grandkids would get annoyed with my grandmother's constant harassment about our eating habits, Bridget didn't mind. In fact, I think she kinda liked answering my grandmother's ten calls per day inquiring about whether we - the grandkids - had eaten. Bridget soon discovered that by praising my grandmother's cooking, food would magically appear the next day on the stove top. Bridget LOVED empanadas, and I think she managed to consume homemade empanadas nearly every day, for every meal.

Around this time, I had secured a job in The City, and Bridget was in the interviewing phase. Thus, she began spending more hours with my family without my supervision. Again, I did think twice. Bridget had lived with me long enough to have a basic foundation in Cubanism. My biggest concern was that she was comfortable with the "yelling" and "screaming" that Cubans call "having a normal conversation."

One day, Bridget had secured a job interview with a company that seemed promising. I told her to call me after the interview to let me know how it went. Around three o'clock I received an ecstatic call from her. To this day, I have never heard her sound so excited and passionate. She was talking literally 100 words per minute.

I quickly thought, "man, living with my family is finally influencing her."  However, when the following words came out of her mouth - "ohh dude, i don't feel so good. I think I need to take a nap" - and her words-per-minute ratio dropped to that of a turtle, I knew something was horribly wrong. The conversation that followed went something like this: 

Sandy: Are you okay?

Bridget: I think so, I don't know why I am so tired all of a sudden. I was soo fully of energy during the interview.

Sandy: Did you eat anything today that might have upset you

Bridget: Not really. I just had a sandwich and some coffee your grandmother had made before I came down to Manhattan for the interview

Sandy: I'm sorry, what? How much of that coffee did you have?

Bridget:  "I just had like two cups. I don't think thats it.

Sandy: Bridget listen to my carefully. Did you have two AMERICAN cups or two CUBAN cups?

Bridget: What the hell are you talking about? I just had two cups of coffee

Sandy: You mean, you served yourself in a normal coffee cup? My grandmother didn't serve you?

Bridget: Of course. What the hell is wrong with you. I can serve my own coffee, Sandy. 

Sandy:  HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!! Bridget. Thats CUBAN coffee. You drink it in doll-size cups, like espresso. You basically had the equivalent of like 20 cups of espresso!!

Bridget: Ohh my God, that explains why your grandmother looked at me weirdly when I went downstairs to get a second cup. She said something, but I didn't really understand her. 

Needless to say, Bridget literally crashed when she got back home, and slept for about fifteen hours. She also secured the job. Apparently, the interviewer liked how energetic and passionate she was about the job. lolol To this day, I'm not sure that I have ever seen her touch Cuban coffee again. 

The moral of the story is - as a bicultural person there are many things that seem like common sense, but in fact are not. When you invite people to interact with your family, make sure you keep an eye on them, for their own personal well being. Your family could inadvertently end up killing them.

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