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I was fortunate to have a leisurely lunch with a friend at work today, and I was melancholy when we parted ways and I had to head back up to my floor alone. But worry not, niblets. I wasn't melancholy for long, for the Divine had placed a little gift in my elevator.
Two construction/electrician guys were having a conversation when I got on, and as is my habit, I eavesdropped. The guys had some interesting Midwestern accents, ones that might sound made up to you if you haven't heard them before. In this city, sometimes the natives say "warsh" instead of "wash," or "farty far" instead of "forty four." That sort of thing.
That's somewhat amusing/grating enough on its own. But today, the gentlemen were discussing an electrical mishap (scary!) at one of their construction sites, and it sounded very scary indeed.
Guy: Yeah, basically it sharted, you see. It sharted out real fast, real quick. Like two minutes after we got there.
Other Guy: No, no way. You're kiddin' me.
Guy: No, I swear. I've never seen a shart like that. Just walked in and boom! (snaps fingers) A shart. Just like that.
Other Guy: Well, that must have been a real mess.
Guy: You'd better believe it.
Of course, a normal adult would choose to recognize at this point that the worker guys were discussing an electrical short.
Not a shart.
That's obvious.
A normal adult probably also wouldn't have bitten her lip so hard to keep from laughing that she impeded her own mouth-breathing idiocy. Had the normal adult been in the elevator, there would have been virtually no chance that, due to an effort to maintain a facade of normalcy, a wee, whiny giggle would have escaped her lips. Because of the compressed lips, the giggle sounded like this- "snkkt." That's a funny sound to find yourself making. The sheer cartoon-bubbleness of the sound had me laughing hard enough to produce more- "snkktsnkktsnkktsnnkkkkktttt..."
It wouldn't have been a total disaster if it had ended there. Like, I could have chosen to sober myself up in this very public elevator by thinking of grown up things like The Economy and Osteoporosis and PTA meetings. That wouldn't have been a bad plan.
Instead, I tried to distract myself by staring at the man's name badge. He had one of the temporary ones that security prints out for you if you're just here for the day- visiting a patient, doing a product demo, etc. It has your name, your intended business at the hospital (interviewing, visiting, vendor, etc), and what department is hosting you. Apparently the security person helping this guy had been in a hurry this morning, because his tag read:
John McJohnJohn (or whatever)
Vendor
Radilogogy
RADILOGOGY.
It was all over. I had to exit at the next floor even though it wasn't the one on which I worked. That was just too, too much to bear.Labels: accents, on the job, potty humor |
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| 9 Comments: |
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that's how my mom & her whole family talk. I think we're all lucky I never WARSH my hands or look at my WARTCH to know what time it is. I'm not sure I would've giggled, though - I might not have even noticed the accent. Which is sad.
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For a short time I picked up saying warsh from a guy know but my hubby was kind enough to ridicule me each time I did it to break me of the habit. (As a singer I have a tendency to pick up the accent of whomever I'm speaking with. I think it comes from singing in all those different languages)
As an aside, it's your hilarious stories that made me start blogging (ok, last week, but it's a start!) just hoping something hilarious like this will happen so that I can write about it. No luck so far, but I'm not giving up hope.
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I've heard the letter R placed into words where it clearly does not belong by my Southern-accented relatives so much that I don't notice it anymore, really. To the point where the other day I had to ask myself if *I* had just said "warsh" and then I kept trying to test myself: "Warsh wash warsh wash warsh wash I don't know my head hurts." All of that to say I probably would've missed "shart" which is too bad.
But I do love laughter at inappropriate moments (happens to me all the time) and there's something about the fact that I'm not supposed to be laughing that makes everything ten times funnier and I can't help it that I always end up snorting. I'm classy.
How would you pronounce "radilogogy"?
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ha! when i was growing up we used to get our fair share of midwestern transplants who moved to Erie to work at GE or one of the forges. Warsh and Shart killed me all the time!
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Hehehe I love it. Thankfully I limit myself to mostly sitting at my computer and listening to my coworkers and laughing but keeping my face focused on my computer so they think I'm laughing at something on my computer instead of AT them. Hahahahah.
PS My elevator story that made me think of you last week: I got on the elevator last week with my iPod on and apparently when my iPod is on I don't realize my inside-my-head voice becomes my talking-out-loud voice. Some a-hole kept pushing into me - I was in the back of the elevator - so I shouted out STOP PUSHING ME and realized immediately that I said it out loud, rather loudly, and tha I WAS AT WORK. Not cool. Thankfully no one important enough to have the power to fire me was on there, but there was a brief moment of panic that I had to check, while everyone scooted further away from me. No more pushing though so I was happy.
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That reminds me of hi-larious Boston accents...
"I pahked the cahhh by the gahhhden so I could run baahhck into the apahhhtment". Always good for a laugh.
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i love the elevator eavesdropping game. you're the luckiest, though, in terms of retarded accents. new yawk has nothing on the midwest for accent genius.
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Gazie- are you sure you wouldn't have giggled? I mean, shart humor really transcends, I think.
Rosie- Welcome to the blogging world! I am excited to check out your tales.
Jamelah- I say it like this: ray-dil-AHG-uh-jee.
Lora- I'm so glad you understand.
Yvo- I have this problem where I think everyone can hear my ipod and i get super self conscious, like OHMYGOD THEY KNOW THAT I HAVE JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR ON HERE!
IW- So THEY would say "I shaahhhted my shaaahhht out supah haaaaahhhd." Right? Did I do it?
Kelsi- I dont know, lover. You're living in a gold mine there.
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My little town/region has accents and pronunciations that would crack you up.
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Name: A Lover and a Fighter
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that's how my mom & her whole family talk. I think we're all lucky I never WARSH my hands or look at my WARTCH to know what time it is. I'm not sure I would've giggled, though - I might not have even noticed the accent. Which is sad.