I thought about driving Ariel to school today because it was supposed to rain, but at the last minute the kids talked me into walking. As I was getting Dallin and Annika into the stroller, I saw my friend and walking buddy coming toward me from her house down the street. She said, "Are you walking? It looks like the bottom is about to fall out."
I paused, trying to decipher her meaning, then I said, "Oh, is it about to rain?"
"Yeah, I'm driving."
"Oh, I guess I will too, we wouldn't want to get stuck in the rain." And as soon as we came home from dropping Ariel off, the rains came down. I wanted to get a picture of what the sky looked like before the "bottom fell out." But this is actually of it raining behind our house. Right behind those tall trees is a railroad.
This evening I went to the PTO meeting at Ariel's school, and as everyone started talking, I found myself giggling, because I can't get over the accent that people really have out here. Part of my brain thinks that they are joking when they talk. Did you ever see "Coffee Talk" on Saturday Night Live in the early nineties. Like the soft a sound sounds like a drawn out word "awe". When everyone applauded the new principal when he introduced himself, he actually said, "I'm verklempt," and meant it. Try saying words like call and Paula a few times with the drawn out "awe" sound, doesn't it make you giggle? Imagine yourself in a room full of people talking like that for real, not trying to be funny. I felt like I was in a movie, a comedy. But I wasn't, so I had to make an effort to contain my chuckles, so people would stop staring at me.
Another thing. People actually say, "PA," instead of Pennsylvania. Imagine people in Utah going around saying that they live in UT.
2 comments:
I actually have heard that phrase about the "bottom falling out" and I'm a native Utahn! :) But I know what you mean. I'm constantly trying to decipher the thick accents here in NY, especially in Harlem! People must think I'm slow because it takes me a few seconds to process what they said.
If I was living there I would be talking just like them in about 2 weeks! At least you have a little humor in your day. I think it would be a little charming to live somewhere all the people speak so different then me. At least it is a form of American English, and not another language!
When I hear people using expressions like "the bottom falling out" it makes me think of well written books.
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