"C" or "D"?

I took Spanish 1 in the 8th grade and Spanish 2 in 9th grade. Señor Bagley was my teacher both years. Like many teachers, he had a few quirks. In class, he would frequently use a Spanish phrase rather than an English phrase.

For example, he might ask a question to which we could respond with "yes" or "no". If we paused, he would question us "¿Sí o No?" while waiting for us to respond. As a young man, I thought this was quite clever and adopted that phrase for other parts of my life.

Later, while learning to speak German as a young missionary in the MTC, I would translate this phrase to German and ask "Ja odor Nein?" when asking yes/no questions.

When Jamie, Tanner, and Allyn were young, I reverted to using the Spanish phrase when I asked them yes/no questions. In particular, I would say this if one of them paused when I asked them a question. I did not realize how frequently I used the phrase.

One day, Tanner and Jamie were playing in the front room of our apartment in Tallahassee. Jamie asked Tanner a question and he did not respond. After a few seconds waiting, Jamie said "Tanner, 'C' or 'D'?" It was then that I realized Jamie and Tanner had heard me use the Spanish phrase frequently but that they did not really understand what I was saying.

Since that time, if I ask a yes or no question to anyone in the family and they do not respond, I will wait an appropriate amount of time and then query "__________" {insert family member name} "C or D?" to prompt them for a yes or no response.