The New & Improved Book of CC

Thoughts and observations from Maine.

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College student, writer, photographer in Auburn, Maine.

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Maine linguistic studies seminar

As the pre-eminent amateur adjunct associate professor of Maine linguistic studies, I have just created a name for the local dialect. I hereby call it Aubiston Creole. Native to the Auburn-Lewiston area, it is a mixture of French, English and complete gibberish mumbling.

As the language has not been extensively studied outside of amateur academia, there is no translation dictionary yet (give me time). For now, one can only extrapolate meaning from the context in which it is heard.

Yesterday, I observed an old woman on the Auburn Mall bus. Speaking to the bus driver, she used the occasional Aubiston Creole phrase. Apparently the phrase "Dree-DARE-tee" has some temporal/spatial meaning, referring to a time or place at which the woman caught the bus.

Unfortunately, it is a dying language. Parents have not passed Aubiston Creole down to their children. On that same bus, I overheard a conversation between a woman and her daughter.

Mother: Have lunch yet?

Daughter: Yeah.

Mother: Jaff?

Daughter: What?

Mother: Jaff?

Daughter: ...

Mother: WHAT. DID. YOU. HAVE.


My very important research shall continue.

Spring break

This week, millions of college students will be vandalizing their unconscious friends with Sharpie markers in paradise.

Shaming never gets old.

Me? I'll spend a glorious week house-sitting on a farm. I'll be taking care of dogs and cats and chickens. Oh, and Matt, too. Throw some pizza or chili at him every 4 hours, and he's good.

In the meantime, the homework beast is still chewing on my leg.

Luckily, new advances in procrastination technology are making it possible for me to be aware of these deadlines, yet remain remarkably cavalier about them.

Cheers!

Unclaimed property

Attention:

Will the person who discarded their clothing in my side yard last night please claim your panties at your earliest convenience?

Thank you.







Overheard at CMCC

(Some time last week. )

Guy to girl: "Hey! Did I say you could walk in front of me?"

Girl: "Sorry, master."

Guy: "Whoa. If you had a genie costume on, that would be so hot."

Caution: Hot Stuff

As far as I'm concerned, hot sauce is the very foundation of the food pyramid.

My personal food pyramid is surrounded by a fiery moat of hot pepper sauce, accessed via a celery stick drawbridge.

There are very few edible objects that are not improved greatly by a few liberal shakes of the molten pepper juice. I think most spicy-food lovers would agree.

Apparently, the folks who distill the capsaicin elixir known as "Frank's Red-Hot" understand this. They understand the psychology. They are appealing to the fiery passion their product inspires in their customers.

While perusing the Sunday newspaper, I came across this ad (accompanied by a coupon for a FREE bottle of the Red-Hot).




I ask you this. Is that saucy little splatter in the tagline just a clever design element?

Or is there an implied expletive? As in, "I put that shit on everything!"

If a love for spicy food indicates a spicy personality-- and a tendency towards spicy language-- then this is a brilliant piece of marketing.

Bravo, Frank! Please carry on with your noble mission of charring my tastebuds and raping my sinuses.

The day I made a little girl cry


So anyway, the OMOD (Old Man's Other Daughter) is visiting, and she brought along her sidekick, the very curly and diva-ish Rose Blossom.

Earlier today, I decided to go outside and investigate this strange bright yellow light in the sky. Hadn't seen such a thing since like September.

I trussed Rose Blossom up in "The Gentle Leader." This is apparently an S&M device designed to strengthen the bond between humans and canines. In Rose Blossom's case, something as simple as "walking down the street" is literally impossible without its discipline.

So we set out and splashed along the muddy, trash-strewn streets of Auburn.

Before long, a small gang of 9-year-olds approached towards us. These kids were bad-ass wrapped in trouble. I heard West Side Story Jets/Sharks music playing in my head.

RB is unpredictable with strangers. She'll either ignore them or turn into a raging snarling beast. I hoped for the latter. There's nothing worse than 9-year-olds who know they're not serving hard time any time soon.

She was my only hope.

She failed me.

"Is that a poodle?" one of the crips asked as we passed on the sidewalk.

"She's a cocker spaniel," I said. Cocker spaniels are way more bad-ass than poodles. Everybody knows that. Is that a shiv in your sock?

They were sufficiently wary of the cocker spaniel reputation. We went our separate ways.

"Why you wanna know what kinda dog that is?" his friend, the most talented methamphetamine cook at Washburn Elementary, asked.

"I dunno, I like dogs."

He's in charge of the dog fighting ring, I know it.

Danger averted, we forged on, stepping through mud puddles large and deep enough to drown cats.

A woman approached in the distance, accompanied by the tiny human she made sometime last year. The little one only started walking like yesterday. Wobble, wobble.

RB recognized the tiny person as something lower and tastier on the food chain.

Tears were shed and howls were shrieked.

It was embarrassing.

I apologized.

Overheard on the Lisbon Street Bus

Overheard on the Lisbon Street bus:

"Yeah, yeah! I know him! Last summer he offered me twenty bucks to, like, chain him out in my yard like a dog, and walk him around on a leash. He said he'd pee outside and everything, he didn't care."