Steven Hunley
07-29-2017, 09:58 PM
My Partner’s Shtick is Now in Seoul and Lucerne
I’d taken this day-job at the International Language School, and as far as I know, the only thing international about it was its students. They were from all over the world. I could get there easily on the seven bus due its central location on Broadway downtown.
After I got off I’d come home and start making dinner until Barb got home. I’d light a few candles and dim the overhead lamp. Just because you start living with someone doesn’t mean you stop romancing them. As far as romances go, ours is still smoking hot. We keep it glowing with love and play.
I’m not sure how it started, but Barb is good at doing accents, one in particular.
When she doesn’t understand something, she tilts her head to one side, screws up her face, skootches her eyebrows together, and says,”Whaaaaat?”
She says this like Jethro of the Beverly Hillbillies, with a drawn-out Ozarks/Appalachian accent. Your significant other, who has a doctorate and is sharp as a tack, now sounds like a country bumpkin, the fella that just fell off the turnip wagon.
It’s her way of saying, “That really makes no sense, it’s not logical, it’s unintelligible or, my favorite, Are you out of your mind? You’ve lost it now.”
After a while, I stole it.
We’d practiced it, refined it, and used it every time we were confused about anything, anything under the sun. It became a running gag for every occasion, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when it escaped. There’s always the danger that intimate things shared between two may not be suitable for the public in general.
In my class we had a table where I sat on one end and the students on both sides. We had two guys from Korea, a Japanese girl, a guy from France, a guy from Brazil and two girls from Switzerland. We’d converse about everyday topics, and the students in class were all at the same level.
I’d say something in English and they’d repeat it, which was the formula for pronunciation.
I was incredulous about something one of them said. People are often incredulous about something someone says in a foreign language. After all, their meanings aren’t always clear so the picture they’re trying to convey can be murky.
I cocked my head to one side and screwed up my face and said, “Whaaaaat?”
Even though they didn’t know the back-story, they were amused. Something about my tone of voice, and the gestures, spoke volumes to them in their own meaning. Something about the whole enchilada of gesture and tone and word was universal in its appeal and understanding. Truly, we are all more alike than different. Barb had physically nailed the concept like Olivier nailed Hamlet.
They repeated it, just for fun. Then they used it because they enjoyed it. And they repeated it every day after that and every day until the end of the semester. There was something about the fun it evoked, this expression of confusion, which crossed every border and transcended every nation. It was the Accent of the Outsider; The Country Lost in the City; the Stranger in a Strange Land.
At the end of the semester, we took a class picture before they took off.
I can’t remember where the rest of them jetted off to, but I know the two Koreans returned to Seoul and the two Swiss to Lucerne.
And I know what they’re saying over hot cups of Swiss chocolate and steaming bowls of Dim-Sum.
Do you have to ask? Are you really asking?
“Whaaaaat?”
©StevenHunley2017
https://youtu.be/aUpDlpJgrBA Rossington-Collins Band - Don't Misunderstand Me
I’d taken this day-job at the International Language School, and as far as I know, the only thing international about it was its students. They were from all over the world. I could get there easily on the seven bus due its central location on Broadway downtown.
After I got off I’d come home and start making dinner until Barb got home. I’d light a few candles and dim the overhead lamp. Just because you start living with someone doesn’t mean you stop romancing them. As far as romances go, ours is still smoking hot. We keep it glowing with love and play.
I’m not sure how it started, but Barb is good at doing accents, one in particular.
When she doesn’t understand something, she tilts her head to one side, screws up her face, skootches her eyebrows together, and says,”Whaaaaat?”
She says this like Jethro of the Beverly Hillbillies, with a drawn-out Ozarks/Appalachian accent. Your significant other, who has a doctorate and is sharp as a tack, now sounds like a country bumpkin, the fella that just fell off the turnip wagon.
It’s her way of saying, “That really makes no sense, it’s not logical, it’s unintelligible or, my favorite, Are you out of your mind? You’ve lost it now.”
After a while, I stole it.
We’d practiced it, refined it, and used it every time we were confused about anything, anything under the sun. It became a running gag for every occasion, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when it escaped. There’s always the danger that intimate things shared between two may not be suitable for the public in general.
In my class we had a table where I sat on one end and the students on both sides. We had two guys from Korea, a Japanese girl, a guy from France, a guy from Brazil and two girls from Switzerland. We’d converse about everyday topics, and the students in class were all at the same level.
I’d say something in English and they’d repeat it, which was the formula for pronunciation.
I was incredulous about something one of them said. People are often incredulous about something someone says in a foreign language. After all, their meanings aren’t always clear so the picture they’re trying to convey can be murky.
I cocked my head to one side and screwed up my face and said, “Whaaaaat?”
Even though they didn’t know the back-story, they were amused. Something about my tone of voice, and the gestures, spoke volumes to them in their own meaning. Something about the whole enchilada of gesture and tone and word was universal in its appeal and understanding. Truly, we are all more alike than different. Barb had physically nailed the concept like Olivier nailed Hamlet.
They repeated it, just for fun. Then they used it because they enjoyed it. And they repeated it every day after that and every day until the end of the semester. There was something about the fun it evoked, this expression of confusion, which crossed every border and transcended every nation. It was the Accent of the Outsider; The Country Lost in the City; the Stranger in a Strange Land.
At the end of the semester, we took a class picture before they took off.
I can’t remember where the rest of them jetted off to, but I know the two Koreans returned to Seoul and the two Swiss to Lucerne.
And I know what they’re saying over hot cups of Swiss chocolate and steaming bowls of Dim-Sum.
Do you have to ask? Are you really asking?
“Whaaaaat?”
©StevenHunley2017
https://youtu.be/aUpDlpJgrBA Rossington-Collins Band - Don't Misunderstand Me