I love it when people change how they speak when they are talking to different people. I see it happen when my friends talk to black people. They start throwing around ,,Dawg,, and ,,Homie,, and dropping off the last letter of words (hangin, gangin, smokin) like it is a standard component of their vernacular. Like it ain,t no thing. I bet they don,t even notice it. They just get nervous and they think that the black dude will beat them up if they start saying words how they actually sound. They gotta keep it street.
I do it sometimes. I did it the other day when I was walking around my really nice neighborhood and this guy crossed the street so we would cross paths. I figured out a long time ago that a move like that generally means that I,m about to get asked for money. So my game of choice as of recently has been to beat them to it and ask them for money before they can ask me. Usually it just confuses them and they say no. This time it backfired.
Tidy Kid - Frozen Flower Pot
I asked the guy for some spare change and he did the same. He asked over and over so I just held out my hand and looked at it disparagingly. Eventually he quit asking me for money and suggested that I walk with him to the corner store so we could both beg for money together and share a nice beverage once we got our funds together. I was not prepared for this and didn't want to tell him that I was just going to go to my insulated home and eat a pizza and watch porn on my computer, so I started actin a fool and slurring my speech and making up a weird story about how I had to go to the train tracks to meet Denny to talk about my sister moving out of state. He threw me for another loop when he told me that he had just been to the tracks and that nobody was there. It was like he was testing me to see if I was really as poor and cool as I was trying to act. He saw right through me. That clever son of a bitch.
He asked me my name so I told him the classic Mike. He said his name was Houston. I said we would meet up at the same place in 30 minutes if he wanted to get drunk later. He agreed. So now I had to take a big detour home so I wouldn,t run into him and have to share a greasy bottle of Mad Dog. I don,t like sharing. In retrospect, it was probably my loss. I bet Houston is a great guy. With his salt and pepper beard and his drool and his wet, blue jacket he was like an overstuffed, dirty teddy bear with long fingernails and a drug addiction.
I just found out that my friend got beaten up last night by a black guy. I wonder if he spoke differently to him when he was trying to reason his way out of it. You know, so they could relate. I think the whole thing started because my friend was speaking English rather than the fake English the the night-crawler was accustomed to. I guess that proves the theory. If you don,t want to get beaten up by a screaming guy on the street at 11:45 at night you have to act like you can,t read very well. Mythbusted.
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