Yesterday, I got a ride home from some people that I work with. I'm lucky enough to have people willing to do this on my lite night shifts. Sharri, one of my favorite persons and an aunt-ly like figure to me, was driving, and Kevin...er...just Kevin...needed a ride home.
So I'm riding shotgun in Sharri's van with Kevin in the back. We're talking things and Kevin starts to relate a time at this very intersection that he saw a woman on a motorcycle cross on the red and slam into a truck side. Nothing wrong with this tale. What was starting to get wrong...was he was evolving his speech into...baby talk.
Let me explain.
Both Sharri and Kevin sometimes "evolve" their speaking patterns into a baby like syntax. Sharri does it trying to be cute, and it sorta is. Kevin does it trying to be gay, which is unnecessary because he has already achieved that. Now, he's not "screaming" or "flaming" gay, just gay, but you don't have to baby talk on everything.
We're not talking about a "goo-goo, gah-gah" like thing. Or even I high pitched voice. Just the evolution of an adult conversation, transforming into a 2 year old. Where words like "here" become "hee-wha", and "there" becomes "deah-wa".
Imagine a speaker at a podium doing this: "...so by examining the bar graph of sales over productivity, we can acheive a proper stance by gow-win ohvah deah-wa and saying 'no-no' to da ouchy..." No change to tone. Just reversion.
So back to the van. Kevin starts his tale "this woman starts to go against the red light, and I thought, 'oh no...dere gonna be a widdow accideeeent'. and she go and go 'boom' on da twuck...". I sit there dumbstruck for a moment thinking, what the hell just happened? I look to my hands to see if I've reverted to my preschool state, as I watch too much sci-fi. I focus on Kevin, not knowing if a piece of my brain misfired and sent me some weird audiology.
Then Sharri chimed in. "uh ohhhh, was she bewing naughty? I bet she didn't feewha vewry good den..." Oh my god! There's probably an airborne virus doing this! Sharri's fallen under and i'm probably next. I claw at the door window controls.
"yeah, dere was de rwed light and she go and vroom thwoow and get hit wit de twuck. And I thought 'oooooh, thwea gonna be a angwee laaaaady, she gonna suuuuue...'. " At this point I realize the air is okay, but they've both been rendered insane anyway. Surely, this will stop.
It didn't, and they talked like this, back and forth, for the entire 14 mile drive. My hand was tightening on the door handle. Perhaps I could open the door and roll out when we slow down at a corner. If I tuck and roll, and aim for a gutter, I might make it. It was too late to change my mind and walk home now. They're starting to mention "ouchy's".
What the hell did I just go through?
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2 comments:
Oh, this must have been hellish. You're being too kind with the "Purgatory" descriptor. Do you think they even realized they were doing this? Ick! (But funny story!
Andrea
I can assure you, that they were serious and didn't know that they do this as much as they do. I have a friend that visits here every now and then, he works with me and knows this tale to be true.
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