I'm walking down a cobblestoned side street on the island of Madeira. The street is typically narrow and steep, though not steep enough for steps. The buildings give welcome shade from the sun. In the near distance, beyond the end of the street, I can see the Atlantic Ocean. Its blue is just darker than the brilliant sky.

I'm on a midmorning shopping trip: bolo do caco, a few pats of butter, liquor, eggs, and an anime T-shirt captioned in Portuguese. Most T-shirts for sale here have only English text, too grammatically correct to be worth buying.

Midway down the street, I pass a woman standing just inside the opening to a building, behind a set of vertical iron bars. Behind me, she says in a soft, hesitant voice, in English, "Please, I would like to go out today."

I stop. What kind of person locks a well-dressed, middle-aged woman behind bars, for her to beg random passers-by to let her out? What hope would I have of changing the jailor's practice, with my fluency limited to ordering coffee (chino), coffee with milk (chinesa), beer (caneca), and wine (um copo de vinho tinto, se faz favor)? A persuasive argument is not structured around the names of beverages.

I turn around, and the woman's gone. She's walked away from the intercom I hadn't seen. The barred garage gate clanks open, presumably set in motion by the hotel reception desk. The woman had never even noticed me.

Thinking about this incident later, I concluded that I would have come to the rescue of such a person eventually, even if that person needed rescuing only in my cartoonish imagination. I would no doubt have embarrassed myself horribly. But that probably happens to cartoon heroes all the time.

This was intended as a bit of humor based on my misunderstanding when I overheard a brief conversation between two other people.  For those unfamiliar with Madeira, it's a Portuguese island southwest of Europe, and it's a lovely place, in many ways more civilized than the United States.  But you know how your mind can play tricks on you some times...