"I still remember. It wasn’t that long ago; maybe in fourth grade when I did this? I was quite uninformed (a nicer way of saying stupid) at the time.

We had been walking around on the playground during recess, which was our little outside period. Sometimes, we would refer to this as our half an hour of daylight in the prison.

My old buddy William had told me that he spoke Dutch. I asked him to say a few sentences. He couldn’t.

Changing the topic, I asked him what interesting things were in his country. “You Duts must like a lot of stuff,” I said.

And that was when he turned on me.

“DUT?” he roared. “WHAT IS A DUT?”

I winced. “I dunno, uh, someone who speaks… Dutch? You know, China is to Chinese, England is to English, uh, Dut is to… Dutch?”

He looked like he was going to murder me. I got afraid. But then a huge smile broke his face.

“Dut,” he said, laughing and snorting, trying to keep the anger on his face. We both went into a laughing fit.

Ten minutes later, I walked back into the building with hiccups and an annoying habit to point at random people, say “DUT!” and run away.

Ah. Good times.

Note: No offense to you Dutch people. I have learned the wrong of my ways now.