People who speak a second language - what have you overheard people saying about you when they thought you couldn't understand?

A few years back, I drove my wife to the hairdressers, and waited while she was having her hair done. There were two older Russian women there having their hair did, too. This is in a community with a very small Russian population, and without anything resembling a Russian community. One of the hairdressers mentions to the women that my wife is from Russia, and these older women strike up a conversation with my wife. Now, my wife hates that because she shares a language with someone, that they all the sudden have a common interest. If she wouldn't talk to them in Russia, she doesn't want to talk to them here. These uneducated, painted cows, in particular, had nothing in common with my wife. They were at least 20 years older than my wife, uneducated (my wife, though in her late 20s, already had her PhD), mail-order brides.

They ask about me - if I'm Russian or American. My wife tells them I'm American, and doesn't elaborate. My wife has no interest in the conversation, but the women decide to chatter on, nonetheless. These women assume, that like their geriatric redneck husbands, I only speak 'Murican (I'm from a Eurotrash family, and speak a number of languages, including Russian). The one woman goes on for what must be half-an-hour, in Russian, about how Americans are insufferable, blah-blah-blah, and how American men are the worst. After a while, there's a lull in the conversation, she turns to me, with the most unnatural, saccharine smile, and asks, in the most accented in English, "Is not her hair beautiful." I answer, in Russian, that my wife's hair is always beautiful, but that yes, the hairdresser has done has a fine job. "Oh, you speak Russian?" she mumbles, with a look of horror, which then turns to anger as she sees my wife's smirk, and realizes she's been set up.

She then tries to back peddle on what she was saying about American men, and how I don't count, because I'm obviously an exception, etc. Like the earlier conversation, this one one is painfully one-sided, but she's aware of it now. If had been in a better mood, I may have said something to let her know no hard feelings, but she was the worst type of gossipy old hen, and I got too much pleasure out of watching her squirm. My wife, who has a kind soul, nevertheless lives to make people squirm, and wouldn't have said anything to make the situation less awkward regardless.

/r/AskReddit Thread