Talk the Talk

I had one of those ridiculous days on Friday where you have the same, "detail of foreigner life" conversation twenty times.

Well, it wasn't really twenty times, but you'll recognize the feeling when I tell you what it was.

All college students, travelers, etc. have it more times than they can count, you guessed it,

the accent conversation.

It started in the morning, at 7:00 when my spanish was particularly poor and I went back to english to ask my housemate about a "tutor."

He had no clue what I was talking about, until I said tutor in a Spanish accent. He thought I was talking about an architectural style or family of English monarchs. This led me to share with him what the Chicago accent sounds like, which he found absolutely hilarious.

Later that day, while commiserating with some other gringos, it came up again. As they were from either the West coast or the East coast, I was able to entertain everyone with my spot on requests for a "haat dog, or a poleish saasage. Yu know, aftir da gaame."

More hilarity.

Anyway, my housemate's girlfriend, Paola, says to me, "Everyone tells me I speak spanish with a Chicago accent because I lived there when I was a little girl! You're from Chicago, what do you think?"

Third time today, and it wasn't even brought up by me. Chingada madre.

Well I had no choice but to explain that she did not have a Chicago accent, and that a Chicago accent could be achieved by either holding your nose or joining the Chicago Police Department. I was forced by circumstance to produce another round of impersonations.

Hilarity ensues.

The weirdness was yet to come though. Housemate Paulo was putting on music later in the evening, and Paola was saying something about Oldies. Then I hear "Oldies 104.3..." I stopped her, "What was that?"

"Oh I don't know, I just said it."

"You know that's the Chicago radio station that plays the oldies, right? You just pulled it up out of the attic of your brain."

"WHAAT!?"

Then the true test, Chicagolanders, you know what I'm going to do:

I put Paola to this one,

Complete the jingle everybody:

Five eight eight, two three hundred ____________

She totally got it. And had no idea how. First she got the tune, then without me telling her, she came up with "Empire."

That old man has international scope.

Depressing.