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I Love Jacket Potatoes
by Arin Greenwood
      

Excerpts:

“What time are you going out tonight?” my mother asks as she and my father leave for a party.

“Half-nine,” I answer, looking up from the tomatoes (to-mah-toes) I’ve just planted in the yard, probably to their demise. Instantly I feel silly, stupid, pretentious.

“Half when?” my mother says.

“Nine thirty,” I say, and my mother smirks.

“Oh, half-nine.”

It’s a scene often repeated – in the course of normal conversation, I suddenly find that I’ve used a phrase picked up in Scotland, my home for the last year or so, much to the amusement or annoyance – but never easy comprehension – of those around me. I suspect my family and friends find it a wee bit tiring. After all, they’ve known me since before I forged my way in the land of whisky and tartan, since before I could rattle off a series of British obscenities in a poor version of an accent that I couldn’t understand myself during my first several weeks in Scotland.

I recognize that the slight lilt in my speech sounds purposely acquired, that words not found in the American lexicon – bloody, trousers, snog, dole, pint – seem out of place in hometown conversation. But what can be done? . . .

 

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