But there I was. I needed to pick up (haha. pick up.) my paycheque from the night club where I work.
What I WANTED to do was compare the phonotactics of Mandarin Chinese and Standard English.
This is a precursor to my vocabulary generation in Decimese.
Unfortunately what I did do was go to pick up my pay cheque.
I decided to stay and dance. I had some beer, alternating them with water.
I'm not actually drunk. The amazing part is that the social gaffe would have occurred even if I was sober.
I cannot multitask. I cannot grasp literal and metaphorical interpretations of statements simultaneously.
Aside: I was talking to my dear friend Michelle, of 14 years of acquaintance.
I noted that a man's brain, transferred to a female clone, would fit after a number of decades once it shrunk sufficiently.
She pointed out that observation could be considered very offensive.
Of course, we both knew that women have a similar number of neurons but they are more densely packed.
I didn't mean any offence. She didn't take any. She's known me too long.
But tonight: wow, just wow. Epic social fail. I couldn't make this stuff up. The stuff of LEGEND.
Background information: setting: Me. Two female coworkers. Ex of my last GF. I cannot think straight around him. I get, well, petty and vindictive. I had done so well with invoking Tao and Buhddist mental states the whole night.
Then - just for a minute- I lost it.
I'll make him jealous, I said. Dance with 2 coworkers, both attractive females- we' d been doing that all night.
But that wasn't enough for me. I wanted to make him very jealous.
I'm too polite to suddenly lift up and swing around a woman without asking first.
So I asked them.
Herein lies the problem. I didn't say "lift up".
I said "pick up".
OMG.
Like I said - I cannot multitask. And would have done the same sober.
Let us examine the multiple word lexemes of "lift up" and "pick up"'.
Lift up - (Webster's Dictionary) - 1. To move in a direction opposite to that of gravitation
That is also synonymous with "pick up" ... well, sometimes. (Palm smack on forehead here).
Pick up - alternative definition - 4 a : to enter informally into conversation or companionship with (a previously unknown person)
Um, seriously didn't occur to me.
So - wait for it - I suggested this to both of them in sequence. Wasn't sure why they looked so scandalized
Then. I got it.
Not literal/physical "pick up". PICK UP. OMG. Wow. Just wow.
I seriously didn't understand that initially.
Decimese: I've been hashing out schemes to indicate spatial, then temporal, then metaphorical overt indications in my aux-lang. Sadly, my native tongue of English is much more subtle and imprecise. And contextually driven.
Yup. That's right. Instead of 'can I spin the two of you around for minute'?
Yup. Wow.
So I'm sitting here, feeling like a major ASS.
One word. Pick. Not lift...
My language Decimese will have not only indicators (like word particles) for various metaphorical meanings.
Social cues will be one of them..
It gets better.
The staff X-mas party is tomorrow.
And if I don't attend now, I'll be a chickenshit.
So I'm going.
But it feels like facing a firing squad.
I think I have sold everyone on optional overt word particle social cue indicators.
...
Merry X-mas.
D.
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