Thruway slice of life
Oct. 29th, 2017 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2yd19OA:
Driving back from Albany to Buffalo on the Thruway yesterday I stopped at the Warners rest stop by exit 39, the western outskirts of Syracuse. I went in to use the restroom, and when I came out, there were a lot of people milling around the rest stop. I got some fries at the fast food restaurant in there, and some of the people milling around started yelling, to the alarm of everyone else.
But it was just bros being high-spirited, and hollering about… well…
The damnedest thing was that even though they looked American (big white meathead-lookin’ dudes, like 50 of them, no women, no small people, no one not white), and sounded American (the vowel sounds Americans make, no notable consonants beyond basic stacatto-blur ones because hollering)…
I could not make out a single word.
I went around a clump of them to go get a straw and some ketchup, and said to the guy next to me, “Am I having a stroke or are they not speaking English? What on earth is going on?” (I’ll mention, there was a lot of hollering.)
The guy, an unexceptional white dude about my age, looked extremely bleak, and said wearily, “Oh. They’re Quebecois.” His wife, who I hadn’t noticed earlier, came up next to him.
“We’re from Ontario,” she said, alarmingly grim of demeanor, “so I can tell you definitely, those are Quebecois, and what they’re saying– I mean, they’re just, I just know.”
“Also,” her husband said, and pointed out the window, where a giant blue tour bus was visible. Along the side in white script it said, “Autobus La Quebécoise” with a line drawing of a very 70s woman’s face.
“Oh,” I said. “Huh,” and left.
I still don’t know why the Ontarians seemed so extremely tired by this.
Driving back from Albany to Buffalo on the Thruway yesterday I stopped at the Warners rest stop by exit 39, the western outskirts of Syracuse. I went in to use the restroom, and when I came out, there were a lot of people milling around the rest stop. I got some fries at the fast food restaurant in there, and some of the people milling around started yelling, to the alarm of everyone else.
But it was just bros being high-spirited, and hollering about… well…
The damnedest thing was that even though they looked American (big white meathead-lookin’ dudes, like 50 of them, no women, no small people, no one not white), and sounded American (the vowel sounds Americans make, no notable consonants beyond basic stacatto-blur ones because hollering)…
I could not make out a single word.
I went around a clump of them to go get a straw and some ketchup, and said to the guy next to me, “Am I having a stroke or are they not speaking English? What on earth is going on?” (I’ll mention, there was a lot of hollering.)
The guy, an unexceptional white dude about my age, looked extremely bleak, and said wearily, “Oh. They’re Quebecois.” His wife, who I hadn’t noticed earlier, came up next to him.
“We’re from Ontario,” she said, alarmingly grim of demeanor, “so I can tell you definitely, those are Quebecois, and what they’re saying– I mean, they’re just, I just know.”
“Also,” her husband said, and pointed out the window, where a giant blue tour bus was visible. Along the side in white script it said, “Autobus La Quebécoise” with a line drawing of a very 70s woman’s face.
“Oh,” I said. “Huh,” and left.
I still don’t know why the Ontarians seemed so extremely tired by this.
