Similar in Regards To

I have thus far managed to resist the cell phone craze, despite having several of them foisted on me by well-meaning relatives. [Don’t worry: I still have them. Should anyone want theirs returned, they are on a shelf in my basement.] And I know I shouldn’t imply that cell phones are a passing fad; clearly they are as deeply entrenched in our popular culture as television or the internets. The day will likely come when I will be forced to succumb to modernity, but I'm really not looking forward to it. The problem is, I despise all things phone.

This extends to the wretched answering machine. I acquired the thing through another foisting, actually, when I was working for the Woodland Agency. My boss worked from an office two and half hours away, and was frustrated by not being able to leave me messages at home, so when she got a new fancy-pants model, the old one came to me. I didn’t feel like saying no was much of an option, but when I moved back east… the thing went into deep storage. We went many years without using it, and only plugged it in recently to aid in the job search. Email, people!

Luckily, SodaBoy shares my distaste for all things phone. Discussing the issue after resurrecting the fool thing, we discovered that we both hate the way our voices sound on tape. We both think we sound nasally and high-pitched. I confessed that just hearing that whiny not-me gets me all paranoid. If that’s what I really sound like, I probably say “like” all the time, too. [See look: twice in the last sentence alone! I’m doomed.]

SodaBoy was kind enough to reassure me: he doesn’t think I use the word excessively. Of course, during the subsequent conversation, we peppered our dialogue with it: like this, like that, like whatever. It turns out that even when trying to misuse the word, we aren’t very good at it. We kept accidentally using it correctly, as a simile, and not as a mere interjection. So then we switched the game up a bit and substituted “similar in regards to” whenever like was to be used. What fun that is!

OK, so we’re big dorks. But, really… you should try it. It’s similar in regards to, totally awesome.