Someday I hope to be that skilled

Today I sat in a Eugene coffee shop, hunched over my copy of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, scribbling furiously in the margins.

I really enjoy studying and reading in coffee shops. Somehow the environment is just busy enough to be stimulating without being too busy—it envelopes you in its bustling, warm environment, and because there is so much noise, your ears don’t tend to pick out specific, distracting threads of speech. But sometimes someone else’s conversation will become just a little too loud or a little too interesting.

This happened today.

I don’t try to eavesdrop. And I don’t think it’s a respectful thing to do, on the whole. But when two college girls seat themselves on the quiet end of the coffee shop and start gabbing in unavoidably loud voices, they don’t leave you much choice.

Despite the volume of these two girls’ conversation, however, I did not listen to them—at first. I was concentrating very hard on my reading. But you know that little tape recorder in the back of your head? The one that kind of “hears” things when you don’t really hear them, when your mind is elsewhere, and then plays them back to you when the world slides back into focus?

Well. My little mental tape recorder slowly began to recognize a, ah, pattern in the speech of these two young ladies. They both had a bit of that… certain something in their speech. I will call it “Valley Girl Speak.”

Now, I don’t have anything against individuals who are valley-girl-ish. It’s just that, as a concept, it is rather easy to laugh at. Observe:

I decided to try a little experiment. I identified three key phrases that one girl in particular used repeatedly. Then, for a mere two or three minutes, I left one ear open as I continued to read, and casually recorded a tick mark in the margin of my book any time she said one of these phrases.

And, I don’t bring this up to humiliate or point the finger at anyone, or with any kind of hostility—let it just be known, for history’s sake, that in those two or three minutes, that poor girl used the word “Like” Twenty-seven times.

“Oh my gawd!” and “That’s SOOOO funny!” tied for second and third with a mere Six times each. Practically nothing.

Also, the phrases “Oh my gawd, like, so…,” “That’s like a little like…,” and “That’s SOOO funny… when did he text you that?” were each uttered at least once.

I actually had to bury my mouth in my arm to prevent myself from laughing around the sixth time that she said “That’s SOOO funny!”

But really… TWENTY-SEVEN times?

That takes skill.

Posted on Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 11:57 pm.
Belongs with: Brief Things, Silly Things.
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