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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Farewell and Waterfowl

I bought an item of clothing online. The why: twenty percent convenience, twenty percent hatred toward most shop clerks and sixty percent me still not knowing where I’m supposed to buy things. (Koreatown? Is the answer Koreatown? Am I in Koreatown? Is the language in which you’re yelling at me Korean?) Oh, and fudge that math a bit so to account for the discount I got for “signing up.” For what, exactly, I wasn’t sure, so I made joined the store — I guess like you would do at Costco — and then also signed up for the mailing list. Apparently, neither of these actions constituted joining, because by the time I finalized the order I realized that I hadn’t received any discount.

I had to write to the lady in charge of orders and request that she give me money — which is always an awkward thing to ask a stranger, in my experience — and I did so in the most polite, straightforward and businesslike manner that I could cobble together from remembered movies I’ve seen where people act normal… until the closing salutation. See, because someone in my office had been discussing the phenomenon of duckface — not this so much as this — and it so hijacked my thinks that instead of “Thanks, Drew Mackie” I typed “Duckface, Drew Mackie.” Send. Realize. Make tiny swears.

There I sat, wondering if I should bother to clarify, but I eventually decided to let this one go and hope that the woman receiving my invocation of duckface would think it was just regional slang or perhaps a tern of phrase common to whatever race I might belong to. I should probably note that I did end up getting that discount, however, either because she agreed that I deserved it or because she didn’t want me to write again and, like, call her a duck or whatever it was I did.

Closing questions: Why is duckface (second type) still a thing? No. Forget that. Why is duckface (still second type) a thing at all? Is it supposed to be an implication? A hint? Is it like when zebras “wink”?

Unrelated tangent: Ignore the previous paragraph and bask in the nostalgia of this kickass early-90s duckface. Trendsetter?


Fun epilogue: In typing this out, I typed salutation and slutation. Twice.

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