Last year, just before St. Paddy's Day, I walked out of my apartment to find this sign taped to the building's main entrance. While I think it was a helpful warning, I'm not sure what disturbed me most:
1. That the party was slated to last exactly 11.5 hours.
2. That "St. Patrick's Day" was in quotes.
3. The use of the word "probably."
This weekend, a friend was telling me that she's frequently out of the loop when it comes to knowing certain slang terms. While her husband claimed that he found this endearingly innocent, my friend lamented that she sometimes embarrasses herself by being behind the times. Case in point: she once loudly announced in mixed company that she didn't understand what "twat" meant.
To help her out, her husband and I ran down a list of euphemisms that she should be familiar with. I'm not sure whether that speaks volumes to our worldliness or to our trashy viewing habits/acquaintances, but in the end, I think it's knowledge worth having.
A couple years ago, my mom emailed me a similar question. This was back in the early days of the conservative trainwreck known as the Tea Party, before they had legitimized their batshit craziness and were commonly referred to as "tea baggers."
My mom had heard on TV that "tea bagging" was actually a sexual term, and she wanted to make sure she didn't use it improperly. Inexplicably, her first fact-finding mission sent her directly to me.
What I wanted to write back was "Mom, this is what the internet is for." Because it is. The Web exists largely to spare us the indignity of asking for enlightenment about potentially embarrassing things. However, I had a small panic attack when I imagined the search results that might populate if my mother googled "tea bagging." There might be pop-ups. There might be videos.
When I was a kid, my parents managed to avoid having "the talk" with me by leaving an educational book about sex outside my bedroom door. So I did what any loving daughter would. I sent her the link to the Wikipedia page.
Every so often, I'm an unwilling participant in the phenomenon that I refer to as the Unisex Name Drop. What is this intriguingly named yet undeniably real event? Here's an example:
I'm ready to pay for something at a store or a restaurant, and the cashier looks down at my credit card and cannot resist commenting that he or she has a family member or a friend or an ex named Courtney. Of course, the Courtney they know is a guy, which makes them chuckle good-naturedly while they relate this story.
I realize that the person is probably just trying to make small talk while waiting for me to sign a receipt, but I'm absolutely baffled regarding how I'm expected to respond. There's nowhere to go from "I know a man with that name." I usually end up forcing a polite smile and saying something like, "Yeah? That's interesting."
But you know what? It's really not. People who have unisex names (even rarely used ones like mine) are fully aware that there are human beings of the opposite gender running around with the same moniker. And when you bring it up, it's awkward. There's nothing relevant to say because it's a completely irrelevant comment.
Unless, like me, they're sometimes mistaken for the opposite gender by myopic people who can't understand that some women have short hair and are 5'10". In that case, it's a bit of an insult, since you seem to be comparing us to your nephew or your male cousin or your brother's best friend.
If you're ever tempted to broach this topic with a complete stranger, may I suggest using any one of the following phrases instead: 1) "That's a nice name." 2) "Have a nice day." 3) Nothing at all.
I once asked a friend what he thought I should say in these scenarios, and he gave me the most hilarious quip I could have wished for. I have it in reserve as my standard response.
CLERK: "Huh. I have a nephew named Courtney."
ME: "Yeah, I know. I'm named after him."
Take that, name droppers.
A couple weeks ago, I met some friends (a husband and wife) for dinner and a movie at a local mall. As I was walking in from the parking lot, I saw the following scrap of paper lying on the sidewalk. Since it featured profanity, of course I picked it up.
It made me laugh, but the content was a bit mystifying. When I got inside, the wife was standing outside the restaurant, saying we had just a short wait and her husband had gone to buy the movie tickets. I pulled out the note to get her assessment, and she immediately commented that perhaps someone had stuck it on a car windshield as a rebuke for bad parking.
She then told me that she'd given her husband a hard time for a haphazard parking job that very evening.
I don't know which of us had the brainstorm, since it's hard to pinpoint the origin of evil schemes when this much serendipity is involved. Suffice it to say that, when we sat down to eat, I presented the note to her husband, telling him I had parked near them and found it on their car.
I don't regret it. What I do regret is not having my phone out to capture his reaction on video. He stared first at the note, then at me, then back at the note, then at his wife, mouth agape, completely and utterly flabbergasted.
I think his wife might have kept him going all night with tongue-in-cheek variations on "I told you so," but I burst out laughing and quickly confessed. I couldn't let the poor guy think that retribution was so impossibly swift, or quite so aligned with his wife's views. That would have made me the asshole.
Or: I Left My Heart at Francisco's
I went to the movies on Saturday night, and I had a voicemail waiting for me when I came out of the theater. It was from a St. Paul number that I didn't recognize, and it went like this . . .
INEBRIATED MAN: Hey, Steve, give me a call.
OK, first of all, my outgoing message clearly says, "Hi, this is Courtney. Leave me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can." But again, inebriated.
INEBRIATED MAN: I'm extremely drunk.
Duly noted.
INEBRIATED MAN: I went to Francisco's house, and he tried to get me drunk. You won't believe it.
Excuse me, tried? He seems to have been wildly successful. And yes, we do believe it.
INEBRIATED MAN: He's really [mumbles] for me.
I've listened to this message about 20 times, and the best I can make out is "He's really got a thing for me." Which might explain the next sentence.
INEBRIATED MAN: Oh, I will never go again to his house. Believe me.
Dude, we believe you. (How incredulous is Steve, typically?)
INEBRIATED MAN: Never . . . never . . . never.
Probably a good idea. Though the emphatic repetition leads me to believe some things may have happened that you're not particularly proud of.
INEBRIATED MAN: Okay. Call me later, okay?
I do want to call this guy later. Just to check up on him. Just to let him know that his intoxicated ramblings reached across time and space (or across Verizon's network, which is equally complicated) to find me, and that I will cherish this random message long after Francisco has lost interest. It's the least I can do.
Sometimes, I'm forced to ask myself serious questions. It's not something I particularly enjoy, but I often find it cannot be avoided. Recently, I had to ask a question that, if you're over 30, may also have occurred to you: "Am I just getting old, or is the casual nature of electronic conversation reaching a level that simply spits in the face of common decency?"
Even if you've never considered it in quite those terms, you know what I'm talking about. And if not, here's an example of an email exchange I had with a representative at a large financial institution. It's verbatim.
ME: Hi there. I talked briefly with [teller name] last week when depositing a check into my business account, and she mentioned that my business could upgrade to an account that would not charge a monthly service fee. Is there a minimum balance we would need to maintain? Please let me know. Thanks!
This, I feel, was an appropriately crafted query with one basic question.
REP: Hi I just get your email let me know when you wan come and set down whit meso we can see what options we have for u
I'd just like to point out that this was an official employee of the bank, and not some teenager who wandered in off the street and mistakenly assumed she was tweeting. This person was, for all intents and purposes, the face of the company, which presumably wanted to entice me to put even more of my hard-earned money into its hands.
ME: I don't have a lot of time during work hours, but I could do 15-20 minutes on Friday if you're available.
REP: What time so I can ready for u
What I should have done at this point was call "game over" after the refusal to spell out three-letter words or to use punctuation of any kind. But I gave her one more shot, partly because I kind of wanted to meet her face-to-face out of sheer curiosity.
ME: How about 11:00?
REP: Hi can you meet me at 12:00pm I have
And that was the end of the message. No joke. Strike three. I resigned myself to the fact that I would never know exactly what her problem was. Instead, I shot a message to the online customer rep and had my issue resolved within 24 hours. Two emails, complete with real sentences!
To the rep, I sent one final reply, in which I delicately explained that I would not be meeting with her, largely due to the confusing and incomplete nature of her communication and suggesting that she strive to be more professional in the future. I wasn't mean, but I think some constructive feedback was needed. The next person might not be so accommodating.
Then again, the next person might have been a teenager who wandered in out of the Twitterverse and was delighted by the refreshingly down-to-earth "communication." If you can call it that.
On one of my recent visits to get my hair cut, there was a young guy in the chair behind me who came in with a special request. He was going to be starring in a play, and he needed his hair cut appropriately for the role. His stylist was the most earnest and possibly most oblivious woman I've ever heard try to carry on a conversation. She desperately wanted to participate in a meaningful dialogue, but she jumped to conclusions so quickly that it sounded like this:
MAN: "I'm in this play . . ."
STYLIST: "Ohhhhh, so like Shakespeare."
MAN: "No, this production is set in the Old West, and. . ."
STYLIST: "So you're looking for like a 1920s thing."
MAN: "I think more like the 1890s, but. . ."
STYLIST: "Ohhhhh, okay. Can you imagine how gross and dirty people's hair was back then? I suppose it doesn't matter much cuz you'll be wearing a cowboy hat."
MAN: "Well, actually, my character's from the city. The Ricochet Kid."
STYLIST: "What?"
MAN: "I'm known for being able to shoot people by bouncing bullets off of things."
STYLIST: "Ohhhhhhhhhh. So like The Matrix."
MAN: (sigh) "Not exactly."
At this point my stylist stopped snipping away because we both had the giggles. I'm lucky I didn't lose an ear.
On my way to work the other morning, my bus driver stopped and waited through a couple traffic lights. Normally I find it quite annoying to just sit stalled while the rest of the metro passes us by, but I understand the reason for it. Unfortunately, the lady in front of me did not.
"What's the holdup?" she snapped.
"I'm ahead of schedule," the driver replied.
"Well, I'M not!"
"Sorry, we just have to wait."
"Unbelievable!"
She then proceeded to whip out her phone and loudly declare to the person who answered (and all of us) that she was GOING TO BE LATE THIS MORNING because her bus was RUNNING BEHIND.
Now, I've been riding metro transit daily for 7 years, and 98% of the time I'm in my desk chair at 8:55 on the dot. However, riding the bus does not guarantee you arrive at your destination on time, any more than taking a taxi or driving your own car. And I include the train in this, because no mass transit system is immune from obstacles that can crop up to complicate your commute.
I don't understand why some bus riders have such unreasonable expectations. You just paid $2 to essentially have a personal chauffeur drive your ass to work while you sleep, chat, or text rather than fighting through rush hour, paying for gas and parking, and putting excess miles on your vehicle. Granted, that chauffeur cares nothing about your personal comfort and will leave you behind if you're 10 seconds late, but still, it's a bit magical, on par with being able to mail a letter to literally anyone in America for around 40 cents.
I especially don't understand it when people suddenly stand up mid-ride and are shocked to learn that the bus they boarded isn't going exactly where they want it to. They're typically real bastards about it, too, as if the driver just changed his mind and chose a destination that wasn't clearly indicated in lights above his windshield. I'm utterly baffled by this. You can't just leap on a random mode of transport and assume it's headed in your general direction. It would be the equivalent of me running to the airport, boarding the first plane I saw, and then being irate that it wasn't, in fact, going to France.
Because then I'd have to whip out my phone and loudly declare that I COULDN'T TAKE TWO SECONDS TO READ A SCHEDULE and the pilot could not READ MY MIND OR CHANGE COURSE, which I find highly UNREASONABLE.
I bet complaints like that sound even better in French.