Oh man, that would be a pain. I’m pretty sure in TJ I usually hear mil cinco cientos. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say quienientos, but also almost every time a price is quoted in TJ, it is accompanied by a calculator turned to face me so there’s no confusion. (And I noted that had the host of my Airbnb actually pointed at the alarm buttons in the first place or, better yet, provided a condo guide with the code printed on it and instructions for use, there wouldn’t have been any confusion.)
So many great posts on this thread, the cringe one was a stroke of genius!
I’m not telling one. I’m too good at surpressing that shit (or I’ve forgotten most of highschool. Ending that period with copious amounts of high-powered Dutch skunk weed did nothing good for my memories of the time.) Just chiming in to add +1 “superb post, well done” tags to all of you :D
Interesting, by many I meant, “several trips to Costa Rica” so I’m probably overselling the breadth of the problem. Still, damned hard to hear a native speaker who will usually stretch the “Mil” and then blow through the “quienientos” so it sounds like MEEELkinentos.
Thank you for a very hearty laugh this morning, I could picture this in my head almost like a teen comedy movie, so funny.
Man, this brought back so many memories. My biggest failure during my teen years is that my overactive imagination played out socially as me overthinking and overanalyzing every single thing I said or did or saw. And every part of your story here just reminded me of me. I’m sorry to hear of the failed escapade, but man I’m so glad I’m in like minded company here.
At least you got up the nerve to send her the letter and also to ask her to dance. As extroverted as I can be now, I struggled with that early on, Getting up the nerve to even CALL a girl took a lot of time and dread to get past it.
But that’s also very freeing when you get old enough to realize that almost no-one gives fuck about what you are doing or how you look (because they are too busy & wrapped up in themselves).
And you don’t care what they think anyway because you aren’t worried about what others think anymore.
Amen. The shit that goes through my head every fifteen minutes or so stretching back to that pencil eraser puppet show for which I was under prepared in second grade is just ridiculous.
THAT WAS YOU?!!!
We didn’t have time to rework the script! But joke’s on you, where I came from there were like two people in second grade and both of them are dead.
Man, second grade in your town was tough.
Bodies to work the tobacco, bodies to feed the tobacco. Everybody wins.
Preach it! I went through what I call the, “transition of not giving a fuck,” somewhere between my late 30s to mid-40s. And it continues to get more and more liberating every year since. We spend far too much time in our life worrying about what others think or see in us and far too little time worrying about all we really need to be happy.
I greatly enjoyed this trainwreck, nay, car wreck! [pause for groans] …of a story. (Too soon?)
I have face blindness and it has led to many mortifying comments over the years. Too many to dwell on. The most memorable was back in 2010.
I had just had my first two books published and I got a vendor table at a convention called Zombcon in Seattle. I’m busy setting up my booth before the convention opens, stacking up books, minding my own business. I notice a guy is going from booth to booth talking to some of the other vendors. I figure he works for the convention and he’s just making sure things are going smoothly. He wanders over to my table, picks up one of my books, and says “Hi. How’s it going? This looks cool.”
I’m pretty distracted. I barely give him a look and say this brilliant line. “It’s a zombie book” and offer a tight smile. He gives me the weirdest look, puts the book down, and walks off. A guy across from me walks over and says “He’s such a nice guy.” I shug. “Who? That guy?”
“Yean. Ted Raimi.”
You know that scene in movies where the room shrinks to a point and the on screen character wants to crawl into a hole? That was me for the next hour.
Cool! Too bad you didn’t recognize him while he was talking :)
Okay, we’ve had a week to discuss Dive’s question, so it’s time for a new one.
Have you ever been in a fight/bar brawl/fisticuffs as an adult?
This one is a bit weird because it may cause embarrassment, so you don’t have to go into details. A simple yes will suffice.
As an ex-bouncer I can safely say, yes. Many times. So many times. And it is a bit embarrassing. Because my job was to stop fights from happening. Unfortunately sometimes a fight is unavoidable.
Maybe? I could go all Bill Clinton on this one and ask for a more explicit definition of “in” for this question.
I have been neither puncher nor punchee in such an event, but on new years eve about five years ago I went to a concert with some friends. Concert was a fun event in a small downtown venue and when it ended shortly after midnight part of the group wanted to hit other nearby bars and keep the party going. I was amenable and went along, only to rapidly discover that everyone I knew well had bailed and I was out with a group of people that I only knew vaguely in the friend-of-a-friend sense. Also I was probably 10-20 years older than the rest of the group I was with.
We ended up in an absolutely packed bar at 12:30am because one girl in our group wanted to say hi to her bartender friend that was working there. She also assured us that her friend would give us free drinks. This turned out to be false, but while we were packed into that bar a fight broke out like four feet away from me. Someone got decked and then fell into me so we both ended up on the floor. The bouncers were already closing in before the first punch was thrown so the situation was resolved very quickly. The bouncers thought I might have been involved and were inclined to throw me out, which I was inclined to argue. The entire point became moot when my group decided that a packed bar of fighting-drunk college students was maybe not our scene and we were leaving either way.
So we went to a frat party instead. I’m not kidding. But I’d learned my lesson so when the group wanted to leave that party and go somewhere else I tapped out and summoned an Uber. The fact that it was 5am and I was a 40+ year old dude who had way too many assorted intoxicants in my system was unrelated. I could have partied more and I’m sticking to that story.