You are being held at gunpoint and receive a phone call from a family member. You are ordered to answer but will be shot if you let them know what is happening. What do you say to let them know something is wrong without getting shot?

An event that happened to my family comes to mind. I told the story in another thread, but I'll copy and paste because I think it's definitely applicable here.

My mom took my younger sister and I out east to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia when I was a teenager.

On our last day there we stopped in this beautiful harbour town, and had dinner on the patio of this sea side restaurant while the sun was setting, the water no more than 10 metres from us. It was one of the most beautiful and memorable moments of my life. God I love my mom. Anyhow I was full and offered my mom one of the last slices of my steak.

I'm placing it on her plate when she stares at me for a second. I stare back, and it finally occurs to me that the couple at the table adjacent to us is speaking Portuguese. My dad is from the Azores, so I picked up a decent understand as a kid. My mom took Portuguese classes during college so she was fluent.

It took me a bit to process what this couple was saying since I rarely speak Portuguese, but the words started to click, and I realized the lady was telling her husband that "the fat whore has to eat her own children's plates", and on top of it my mom is not even remotely overweight. My mom and I continued to look at each other when my mom finally said to me (in Portuguese), "Son, no matter what language we speak, we're to speak and act one another in a kind, christ-like manner". I'll never forget those words.

The Portuguese couple turned to look at my mom, and we looked at them, I wanted to give them the finger but we just stared at each other for a moment when the wife got up hastily, followed by the husband, and I guess they went inside to pay the bill. They never did come back to pour anything from the bottle of wine they had bought maybe 2 minutes prior.

The moral of the story is even though you're in a ~500 Person East coast Canada harbour town, don't say something you wouldn't say in English.

/r/AskReddit Thread