Oh Hell No

I hoped that this day would never arrive. If there is one thing I am more afraid of than being attacked and/or popped on by a seagull, its that I will develop a Madonna-esque fake English accent. If I can avoid both of those, then my time in Brighton will have been a success. Its just so horribly pretentious, and SO uncomfortable when I know that someone is American and they are trying to pretend like they have an English accent. I cringe inside, and sometimes I physically shudder as well.

For example, there is this girl in one of my seminars who I am sure is a decent, nice person, but she puts on this fake English accent and I know she's from Seattle. Even more embarrassing, her "English" accent is especially strong when she is impersonating someone pretentious. I keep wanting to pull her aside and tell her, "You aren't in the states. You are in ENGLAND. We are surrounded by people with the accent that you are making fun of. We are out numbered and they could hurt you."

So I've been monitoring my accent and trying to stay as A-meRr-ican (how George Bush says it) as possible. Although with Maryse visiting I started to realize how many English-isms I've picked up, such as "doing the washing up." But today I was buying frozen yogurt in the laines with some friends and I was saying which toppings I wanted. I asked for cookies and cream (they were plain old oreos), and then, a moment I wish I could take back, I asked for "Bah-nah-nah." After I heard myself pronounce "banana" in this way I flipped out and corrected myself and apologized to the worker who was helping me. He just smiled in a conspiratorial way, which was cute. I also dropped my two pound coin and it rolled away for a really long time. All in all it was undoubtedly the most bizarre frozen yogurt buying experience of my life.

So even though it was scary for me, the frozen yogurt worker's reaction was nice. And then we went to another dessert place (yikes!) called Choocywoocydoodah (the picture is of this store). And I asked one of the workers there (they are all really cute and I have a big crush on them, the store, the whole package really) what some other customers were drinking (hot chocolate with a ton of whipped cream). He asked me where I was from and I think he was kind of impressed that I was from Missouri, which is probably a first for me. He said, "Missouri is a long way from here. Do you like chocolate, have some," and then he gave me free chocolate! So, I'm in love. He had tattoos too.

So, Brighton is really growing on me, despite an unfortunate trend on my part of adopting some of the accent.