tcsa

Three Finger Discount

I've been thinking perhaps I'm a challenge to talk to, having developed my own style of shorthand conversation over the years. It's not original by any means. The British have been doing a version of it forever, Cockney rhyming slang: "Adam & Eve" = "believe", "cobbler's awls" = "balls, testicles; nonsense". Text messaging, while a mystery to me and my fumbling fingers, is a shorthand communication, u no wht i mean? And in "Star Trek: Next Generation", there was an episode where Picard had to communicate with an alien using language based on metaphor. (I loved Next Gen, mainly because of Picard's accent and the fact that I am a confirmed accent slut.)
I am not just a shorthander, I am a thieving shorthander. Most of my quick-and-dirties I've taken from movies or television, as I am not nearly as clever as I pretend to be on the blog.
Or maybe I am and this is a clever ruse. Heh.
Anyways, here are some of my Q&Ds:
Smell the toast: It's long been a favorite theory of the GM1 that my random slides into silliness are caused by having The Big Stroke I am anticipating in my old age (which is anywhere from last week to 2076) in increments. And I think it was in an old "Will and Grace" episode that "smelling the toast" was used to mean stroking out. Thus, when I lose track of what I'm doing, or have a lapse of memory, I claim to "smell the toast."
Something shiny: Used to indicate distraction for anything less than a train crash on the front lawn.
Volcano: Until we had Our Little Talk about such things, the GM1 was prone to reminding me at 10PM that he needed a clean shirt, starched and ironed, in a particular shade of green with an embroidered family crest on the breast pocket for the next morning. I likened this, after I stopped screaming, to the child who informs his mother that he needs a 1/5 scale working model of a volcano for school tomorrow as he's being tucked into bed. Example: "Don't go all volcano on me, babe... do you need new shoelaces now or next week?"
Bar and grill: Back when we lived in the same zip code, my best friend Tonya and I used to have coffee-and-DVD mornings. One day we watched a Margaret Cho performance, and while we both agree Margaret had gone past the edge of entertaining and into the pit of shrill, boringly political and all-around activist zealotry, we did take notice of one phrase. She was telling a tale about one of her very gay male friends who opened a bar called Beaches, after the *gag retch* Bette Midler movie. Margaret asked the obvious question... why didn't he just call it the Fuck Me Up The Ass Bar and Grill? Since then, to describe a flamingly gay man, or any situation that is such it would make Carson from Queer Eye sit up and go "Holy shit, that is SO gay!", we say it's "bar and grill."
Duh! Big red truck!: This is the answer to anything blindingly obvious, such as "Look at that woman in the lime green stretch pants? Do you think they're kind of tight?" "Well, DUH! Big red truck!" Comes from one of my favorite jokes, which is as follows:
A blonde lives way out in the country, down a long winding road with poor signage, even impervious to Mapquest. One day her house catches on fire and she calls the Fire Department...
"My house is on fire!"
"Calm down, ma'am, where do you live?"
"In the big house on the hill, past the crooked tree on the wiggly road... you know..."
*sigh*"Ma'am, how do we get there?"
"Well, DUH! Big red truck!"
I love blonde jokes.
Help help fucking help!: Unless I am visibly aflame, this normally means I have spotted an insect on my phobia list and I am on my way up to perch on top of the refridgerator to safety while the GM1 comes to kill it. Yes, I am such a girl.
I will admit that if the GM1 is not around, I will not hesitate to kill the evil creature myself... I pound it to a pulp, spray the pulp with bug spray, set the results on fire, and flush them down the toilet.
Can't be too thorough when it comes to bugs, you know.
Pick a finger: The GM1 and I are addicted to a Fakespearean group from Renaissance Faires known as Sound and Fury. We usually schedule our spring outing to go to the Ren Faire and base our day around seeing their performances. In one skit, one of the actors holds up his hand, fingers outspread, and snarls "Pick a finger!" It's a rather more subtle way to indicate with five what could commonly be said with one, and has the added fun of confusing those you direct it at. I know personally that the people in my previous apartment building mainly just thought I wave funny. But I knew what I meant, and felt better for it.
And of course, "cheesy" means "good".