Typical conversation around my house

[drwex]

No, really. We actually talk like this.

Y'see I have this problem: when I get tired I tend to Spoonerize my words pretty badly. At least, that's the closest description I can find of what I do to mangle the language when my neurons misfire. Famously at one point I attempted to say "I have no brain in my head" and all that came out was a plaintive "No bread!" This phrase has now entered our jargon as shorthand for mental distress.

So last night I'm talking to Pygment about how I want to get some "New beets" and she's giving me a VERY odd look.
"Beets?!"
"New boots!" I say, "For my feet!"
"Oh, you said 'beets'."
"Well, yes, I like to put one on each toe and get a real red clown-shoe effect."
"No bread, eh?"
"Not a crumb!"

Comments

[dpolicar]

This reminds me of a story of my own, which I will now share.

I am prone to the staring-thoughtfully-off-into-space brown study. P is fond, in those cases, of asking me "What are you thinking?"... which, for many years, had the effect of bringing me out of my brown study with no saved state.

Since "I don't know" seemed an inappropriate answer (though, in retrospect, I can't see why), for many years I would respond to this by returning the first coherent and potentially interesting thought that came to mind.

I justified this on the grounds that it was probably what I was thinking... I mean, there it was, right at the top of my mind. If I'd been asked "what are you eating?" when I wasn't paying attention to my food, I might look at the plate and report on its contents, in much the same way.

But one day, I was asked that question just after putting on my winter boots, when I was wobbling around getting used to their bulk. And I gave the answer: "My boots... they're on my feet!"

Which has, since then, become code for "I'm not really thinking anything particularly coherent or articulable."