12:17pm
Minneapolis, Minnesota
She slams down my Big Mac with more anger than most cashiers.
“Nobody has spoken that language in thousands of years,” she says.
My eyes pop. I didn’t think this was possible. Not anymore. Not in 2023.
The cashier follows me to my booth.
“How did you do that.”
It wasn’t really a question.
I take a breath and begin.
“When I was seven, my parents took me to Jerusalem.
“In a small restaurant down a dusty road, my parents ordered a Bablefish. They had heard that whomever eats it would be able to speak in any language.
“My parents wanted to give me this superpower.
“They lived long enough to know it worked. But before we left that tiny restaurant, they had to pay.”
I hang my head in shame.
“And I have been a multi-lingual orphan ever since.”
The cashier looks up from my fries. She had eaten almost all of them.
“You don’t understand.
“I haven’t heard anyone speak my language since I was seven years old.
“That’s when my parents sold me into slavery to pay their taxes.
“The men who bought me were kind, but poor. After their travels, they gave me my freedom… but cursed me with eternal life.
“And now… you are the only person who knows my secret.”
I take a pull from my Coke.
Until this very moment, I thought I had seduced buyers in every market, using their own language.
But I had just found a new market.
A fresh challenge. And she was so interested that I was speaking her language, she wasn’t going anywhere.
I had her hooked.
You can hook your audience too.
Speak their language.
Tell stories.
Be entertaining—even if you only entertain yourself.