Tag Archives: New York

BonChon Chicken

Sometime last year my wife started talking about this chicken place that she found out about with her sister. “It’s so good! You have to come with us! We can’t get enough of this chicken!” over and over again she’d tell me, every time she’d go out with her sister it was the same deal, “This chicken is the greatest!”

And it was annoying, seeing my wife and my sister-in-law this happy, over chicken. Watching them talk about their experience at this restaurant, I’d think to myself, I don’t ever get to that level of joy about anything in life, let alone fried chicken, and so I sank my heels in deep, determined not to let myself try the chicken, lest I start to believe that maybe this type of happiness might be real.

I was afraid, deep down, that I’d buy into whatever hype they’d bought into, and then after trying the chicken, I’d be naturally disappointed. I’d come back home with a stomach full of grease and I’d wonder, am I fully here? Is there something wrong with me, preventing me from enjoying what everyone else seems to be genuinely in love with?

Just let them get it out of their system, I figured, they’ll eat it to the point where they get sick of it and then we can all get back to our miserable, regular lives as usual. But the chicken fever, it wasn’t running its course. If anything, their love for this chicken place was growing deeper, stronger in intensity.

And try as I might to make them keep their chicken business to themselves, it got to the point where their occasional, “Rob, you really should try this chicken place,” snowballed into a daily, “Rob! I order you to try this chicken! Rob! I’m serious!” But like I said, I had already made up my mind. For better or for worse, I’m a stubborn guy, a real asshole, and so this went on for weeks, me, just trying to go about my life, attempting ever more unsuccessfully to evade this fried chicken propaganda.

One day I was getting off from work and my wife was like, “I’m getting off from work too. Let’s meet up and grab a bite to eat.” In a lapse of judgment, I agreed. She told me where we’d meet, but failed to mention the place. I showed up a little earlier than she did only to find that I’d been duped.

There it was, BonChon Chicken. I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming. It’s like, I don’t think my wife had eaten anything else besides BonChon Chicken for the past month, and here I was being guided to a restaurant of her choosing. Of course it was going to be BonChon Chicken. Had I really missed such an obvious trap? Or had a part of me started to cave? Somewhere from behind my active consciousness, was my brain maybe starting to at least wonder if any part of this hysteria might not in fact be true?

Reluctantly, I went inside and sat down at a table. BonChon? What kind of a place is this, Korean? I like Korean food, but I’ve never really made any sort of connection between kimchi and fried chicken. And that’s what the menu was all about. Legs, thighs, kimchi, scallion pancakes. Whatever, I was hungry and this place actually seemed pretty cool, that aroma wafting through the air …

Snap out of it Rob, I tried to ground myself back into my skeptical mind, let’s have a bite first, at least. I ordered the scallion pancake, some kimchi, and some assorted legs and thighs, some of them spicy, some of them garlic and soy sauce. “Ha!” I said to my wife after placing the order, “That’s not a fried chicken flavor!” But I just sounded like an idiot.

And I can admit that now, because as soon as I took that first bite, everything changed. I did a complete mental one-eighty. This was the best fried chicken I had ever had in my life. I’m not like a fried chicken connoisseur or anything, but I’ve eaten it elsewhere, I’ve made it in my own kitchen with varying degrees of success. Whatever, it’s fried chicken.

But BonChon is fried fucking chicken. It’s like, I have no idea how they do what they do with legs and thighs. Somehow the chicken winds up coming out of their kitchen almost too perfect in appearance. If you asked a professional artist to render the ideal fried chicken leg, he wouldn’t even come close to what BonChon is able to achieve.

The chicken skin is somehow not only fried to crispy perfection, but it balloons out slightly, absorbing whatever flavor it’s seasoned with, becoming one with the skin, and expanding just enough past the meat to where your first bite, it’s like crunchy skin, pause, then juicy meat. You know what I’m saying? When you have your standard fried chicken, the skin always kind of slides around on top of the meat, so when you start to dig in, you wind up swallowing most of it during those first two or three bites. But BonChon skin, it’s like its own entity, it’s almost structurally apart from the rest of the meat, ensuring that eat bite of chicken has at least a little bit of delicious, chewy, almost candy-like skin.

I’m a total convert. I wound up polishing off eight pieces on my first time. And every time my wife brings home a box, or I wind up sneaking away for more, I can’t help but finish every last morsel of meat from each bone. It’s almost crazy how good this chicken is. I like to brag about how much I can eat and all of the different foods that I’ve had, but BonChon is levels ahead of anywhere near where I’ve been before. I see that plate of chicken and it’s like I black out, like I get possessed by something inside, something primal, and the next thing I know I’m staring in disbelief at all of the bones that I’ve made short work of.

Go to BonChon Chicken. It’s a chain. There are several locations in New York. It’s usually crowded, so be prepared to wait. I hope this thing takes off and puts all other fried chicken places out of business. I hope that someday there is a BonChon on every corner. Hey President of South Korea, maybe it almost seems like too easy of a solution, but if all else fails with the whole North Korea stalemate, you might as well try some BonChon diplomacy. Fly them some chicken. Watch the Kim regime dissolve as they beg for more. It could happen, I really think it might work.

The “I Hate New York” Blog Post

Wow. New York City. I hate it. Just kidding, I love it. But seriously, it’s terrible. Haha, that’s my way of telling the Internet how much I love it. Do you get it? Did you read that Onion article? No, you don’t get it. Unless you do get it, in which case, congratulations, you live in New York. If you don’t get it well, you’ll still read this, you’ll think, man people from New York really don’t like living in New York. Ha. You don’t get it.

One of the best things about living in New York is getting to complain about New York. You get to say things like, “Only in New York!” but only to non-New Yorkers. If you ever said, “Only in New York!” to a New Yorker, they would immediately call you out as a tourist, as a non-New Yorker.

Like if I’m visiting my friend in some other city, I don’t know, somewhere else, Baltimore, or, yuck, Cleveland, and it’s three in the morning and we’re in the suburbs somewhere and it’s dark outside and there’s no noise anywhere, I might say something like, “Hey, lets go run to the corner store and get some more beer,” and they’d be like, “What are you talking about, it’s three in the morning, nothing’s open, and everything’s too far away to walk,” and then you’d say, “Oh yeah, right, it’s just that, where I live, you can get anything, any time, and it’s all right down the block. Only in New York!” and your friend would be like, “Listen, I want you out of my house before breakfast tomorrow.”

But if you’re all the way downtown waiting for the one train going up, and the train rounds that corner, and it should be empty because it’s the first stop, but it’s not empty, there’s a homeless guy sitting there, and he’s got his pants all the way down, and he’s masturbating, if you look to the person waiting next to you and you say, “Only in New York!” that person – haha – is going to know right away that you’re not from New York, that you’re not a real New Yorker.

No, real New Yorkers embrace that man. They sit next to him like it’s no big deal. They drop trou and join in on the fun. Because don’t you tell me what the real New York is. You’re not entitled to tell me or anybody else anything about New York. Once you start talking about New York, it’s gone, it’s out of your grasp, and just like that, you’re not a real New Yorker anymore. Maybe someday years from now when you’re visiting those same friends out of town you can look back fondly upon the incident, watching their disgusted reactions as you matter-of-factly explain what went down that one time on the one train. Maybe. Probably not. We’ll see.

But let me break my own cardinal rule for a second here and say that the current real New York thing to do is to write blog posts about how much you hate New York. Do you really hate it? Not really. But you can’t write about how much you love it, because what are you, from Long Island? Everybody knows that doesn’t count. Sorry pal, get back on that 5:37 Long Island Railroad train to Hicksville, I’ll see you next week at the Nassau Coliseum. “I hate New York” is the new cool way of saying, “I love New York.” But whereas the old love slogan was too universal, too easily shared by everybody in the world willing to pay ten bucks for ten “I heart NY” t-shirts, “I hate New York” brings just the right amount of New York exclusivity.

Oh my God my apartment is so small! Holy-moley, could this train be any more crowded? Jesus Louisus, these people in front of me are walking so slow! Seriously, do those cars really need to be honking their horns that loudly? Let me tell you something, you just have to go check out this new gastro-barber shop I found in YahBrah. What neighborhood is YahBrah? Don’t ask, just nod in agreement, tell your friend that you’ve already been there, that the Blendingtown Heights location is much truer to what they’re going for, what they were trying to speak when they jumped on the gastro-barber shop bandwagon.

Because really, New York’s such a terrible place to live, right? Haha. But seriously, I leave New York and I’m like, “Oh my God, New York is making me crazy!” but then you realize, wait a second, it’s a part of me now, I’m a part of it, and so I love it, and I love hating New York, and I love telling everybody that I hate New York, and when somebody says to me, “Well, if you really hate it that much, why don’t you just get out?” and then you can go, “Ha!” because you did it, you nailed it, them, whoever it is you’re talking to, talking about. They don’t get it. They’re not a real New Yorker. Ha.

Kyle Smith, you are a huge asshole: a response to an op-ed in the New York Post about waiters and waitresses in New York City

The other day this asshole Kyle Smith wrote a douchey little op-ed in the New York Post about how much he hates waiters and waitresses. It was one of those pieces that, with each sentence that I read, I’d grow increasingly enraged, to the point where if he were standing right here, I’d probably assault him. All I was thinking was that I wanted to write something back to this guy immediately, to let him have it. But my emotions were running too high, and I needed some time to calm down, distance myself from the hate this guy was spewing.

Now that I’ve cooled off a little bit, I feel like I don’t know where to start. So I’m going to go through his piece, line by line, spell everything out as to why this guy is such a tool.

The hostage drama of dining out in New York City

By Kyle Smith

March 2, 2013

“Hi!”

Well, hi there! I’m doing great this evening, thank you! It is quite rainy out there, you’re absolutely right! I guess we’re both really super-stoked to be here in this restaurant that’s more crowded than my junior-high-school cafeteria! Imagine the excitement, eating food in public! And your name is Jason?

Jason! I don’t care! Just bring me some food and go away!

So here’s where we start. Kyle Smith is an asshole. He doesn’t like talking to strangers. He doesn’t like talking about the weather. He doesn’t like the fact that the restaurant he’s at is too crowded. Kyle, I’ve only read about a paragraph of your writing and I can already tell that you’re not a nice person.

To you I say, why venture outside the house at all? Why eat in public? You clearly don’t like other people, why be subject to their presence in large numbers? In fact, why live in New York City? There are way too many millions of people that might actually force you into having some sort of a human interaction.

I’m sorry that technology has not yet brought us to the point where each restaurant table comes embedded with a touch screen. Maybe you could just order your own food, type in your own special requests to the kitchen, then the chef could come screaming at you that he’s too busy for all of your nonsense. To you I would say, Kyle! You’re an asshole! Stop making my job more difficult! Say hello, eat your food, pay the check, and you go away!

Waiters and waitresses at New York’s self-consciously hot restaurants need to cool it a bit. I don’t care how charming you are on your auditions. I’m not here to make friends. Frankly, garcon, I don’t even need to know your name. By the time you tell me about the specials, I’ve already forgotten it. You’re a servant. So serve.

Hey buddy, I’m not a servant. I’m a waiter. There’s a difference. And you don’t like my friendly disposition? Guess what? Neither do I. It’s fake. My bosses make me do it. They tell me to go out there and smile. If I’m not smiling, and some secret shoppers come in and sit at my table, and they tell my bosses that I wasn’t smiling, that I wasn’t friendly, then I get in trouble, maybe fired.

I’m not here to make friends either. And besides, even if I were, you don’t sound like the type of guy I’d imagine myself going out for a beer with. I’m here to make money. I’m here to do a job and have you give me money. Because the house isn’t paying me. You are. It’s at your discretion. Sorry you don’t like my smile or my attempt at being upbeat. You should go to one of those restaurants where the staff looks down on its customers, visibly annoyed by their presence.

And you don’t want to hear about the specials? Again, why are you at a restaurant? If it’s not for the food, I seriously suggest doing something else with your friends. Go bowling. Go out to a bar. Don’t go to a business where it’s everybody’s job to cook up something better than every other restaurant in this town. I apologize profusely for letting you know what’s for dinner tonight, asshole.

Strangely, New York waitrons (my generic term for both sexes of waitstaff) don’t even serve anything anymore. They seem to view themselves as party planners or masters of ceremonies. After taking my order, they disappear and give way to a series of surly busboys who do the food delivery, the clearing, the refilling of the water glasses.

I don’t know, that’s not how we do it at my current restaurant, but even at my old job, where we had busboys, I ask, so what? I’m trying to manage a whole section of tables. As in, you’re not the only people I’m trying to attend to. As in, you’re not the only person in this city, dick.

And these surly busboys that you’re putting down? The shitty tip that you feel insulted at having to pay? They’re getting part of that money. Yeah, why rely on teamwork? It speaks much more of a person that he runs around trying to do everything rather than delegating smaller tasks to coworkers.

After the order goes in, the next time I see Jason is when, after first ensuring that my mouth is full, he sneaks up behind me and hits me with a cheerful, “HOW IS EVERYTHING?”

Yeah, again, you’re not the center of the universe buddy. I have multiple tables to juggle, trying to make sure everybody is having a good time. Let’s say you’re out to eat – that is, after all, what you came here to do, right? Eat? – with three other people. After your food hits the table, I’m supposed to wait for you all to dig in, but then also lurk in the shadows, hoping to catch all four of you at a moment when you’re simultaneously in between bites of food? That’s a logistic impossibility.

Hey Kyle. Just give me a thumbs up. Is your food OK? Great. Is it not OK? Tell me. I’ll fix it. Again, sorry for being cheerful. Jerk.

In France, where I try to spend a week or two every year, waiters don’t even work for tips (the customer is expected to leave a mere euro or two) and yet they’re so much less annoying.

It’s the difference between a country where the children act like grown-ups and one where the grown-ups act like children.

Wow! You spend a week or two in France every year? That’s so cool! Please tell me more about it! France! Oh-la-la!

In Europe they pay waiters and waitresses a livable hourly wage. If I were paid decent money by employer, I wouldn’t be trying to make you personally happy with me. Because, and this is unfortunate, you pay my bills, at your discretion. My grandmother always used to say, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. And so yes, I’m smiling at you. I’m trying to be friendly. I’m not trying to be friends with you, I’m trying to get you to pay me for the job I’m currently doing.

Man, France! That is so awesome! You get to travel to France! The country where children act like grown ups. The country where everybody still smokes cigarettes. You make it sound so much better than America. You should go live over there! I mean, you’re already vacationing there one or two weeks every year. You’re practically a foreign national!

The French waiter sees himself as a party in a simple business transaction. When he’s ready for your order, he says, “I am listening.” Not talking. Not smiling like a politician. Not preening like the most adorable scamp in “Newsies.”

When a French waiter brings you the food (himself, instead of subcontracting the job), he, like P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves, simply trickles off, instead of vanishing. If you want him, you can simply wave him down. He’s standing right over there.

For a guy who makes no secret of his disdain for American servants, you have quite the knack for putting yourself in the shoes of our French counterparts. (I notice how French waiters don’t warrant your little “waitron” joke.) Here’s somebody you can relate to. Somebody who doesn’t smile, who doesn’t really feel anything at all. He’s barely concealing the same contempt that you make no effort to disguise toward anybody. And that’s the way it should be. A whole city full of pissed off snobs with scowls permanently etched onto their faces.

If you want him, he’s standing right over there. And he’s also not subcontracting his job out like us lazy Americans. He’s doing everything, while he’s standing right over there. Just wave him over. Or even better, just snap. He’s a servant also. But dignified. Because he’s pissed. Or not happy. Right?

The worst part of dealing with American waitrons is we’re forced to be nice to these creepy ex-darlings of their high-school theater departments because of the unspoken hostage drama that’s taking place behind the scenes with our food.

It’s as exhausting as pretending your friend’s baby is cute. Your mouth actually starts to hurt from smiling.

“Of course you spit in the food if you don’t like the customer,” I once said to a girl I knew who had been a waitress for years.

“Nah,” she said. “If we didn’t like someone, we’d just throw his steak on the floor.”

Which is why I’m being so nice to you, Jason! In reality, I can’t stand you, you twerp! As you’ll find out when you see my tip!

Back to America, back to that waitron joke. And here’s where you show your true colors Kyle. “Of course you spit in the food if you don’t like the customer.” No. Of course you would spit in the food if you were a waiter and you didn’t like the customer. In your attempt to empathize with your servants, all you’re doing is seeing yourself from their point of view. Disgusted with your reflection as a human being, the first thing that comes to your mind in this scenario is spitting in your own food. Because seriously, how can somebody stand to take shit from a little prick such as yourself without holding back the urge to hock a huge loogie in your food?

I don’t know. But even though you’re a huge asshole, I’m still not going to spit in your food, or drop your steak on the floor. You’re an asshole, but I’m not. I’ll get through this most unpleasant of interactions.

And what’s with the squatting while you’re telling me about the specials? I know the waiter’s handbook says you get more tips that way because you remind us of cute, subservient creatures we actually like, such as golden retrievers. But it’s juvenile. Stand up and be a man. As much of a man as it’s possible to be while enthusing over whipped-feta crostini.

Now you’re just nitpicking. You don’t like it when I hover, you don’t like it if I crouch. Now you want me to be a man. Now I’m not a waitron. What about waitresses? Are they allowed to crouch? Or would you prefer them acting like men also.

You’re telling me to stand up, to not act subservient, but at the beginning of your piece you tell me that I am a servant. So serve. You said that. Do you have like an editor that goes through your writing and points shit like this out to you? Or do you verbally berate everybody like you talk down to waitrons? “Don’t tell me how to write a piece! I’m Kyle fucking Smith! You’re a bullshit editor! You’re a servant!”

Jason, if you were at all useful, you would at least keep anyone from clearing away my plates while I’m still eating off them.

I realize you want to hustle me out of here so you can replace with a new customer. I’m a capitalist. (And in France, I’ve been baffled to get turned away from an entirely empty establishment at 6 p.m. because all tables are already reserved — for diners who intend to show up at 7:30 or 8 or 8:15. Don’t they want my money in the meantime?)

Nor am I sentimental about lingering for hours in a restaurant. After a while, the way everyone seems as though they’re determined to act out the concept of “Having a wonderful time!” starts to creep me out.

Now it’s my turn to be petty. Maybe the Post’s web site has since corrected your grammar, but “so you can replace with a new customer,” I think you’re missing a word there. Maybe you should be a little nicer to that editor. You’re a professional writer, right? OK, I was just checking.

Which is to say, get over yourself. Sorry, I didn’t know you wanted to save that last bite of food. You put your fork down. You looked like you were done. Do you mind that I asked? You said you weren’t done. I didn’t take your plate away. Again, this is life, this is human beings interacting with other human beings. I’m not a telepath. I can’t divine when you’re done with your plate.

But try to big a big boy there Kyle, finish your dinner and put your silverware down. What do you need a break? Yes? Then host a dinner party at home. What bugs me is that you continually want it both ways. You don’t want to linger, but you don’t want to be rushed. I guess in France the waiters know precisely the moment to clear everything away. Ah … France.

But, Jason and Co., it’s been only eight minutes since you set my plate down. There’s still food on it. There’s still a fork in my hand. Do I need to actually hunch over my meal and make snarling sounds to keep your busboy buzzards at bay.

In other words, Yes. I am. STILL WORKING ON THAT. THE WAY YOU’RE WORKING ON MY LAST NERVE.

New York restaurants’ tables should be set with a little two-sided sign that can be flipped around as appropriate. STILL HARD AT WORK on one side. MY WORK IS COMPLETE on the other.

I’m spending $150 tonight, Skippy, and yet you were in the Federal Witness Protection Program when I needed a second drink. Now you want to hustle me into dessert and coffee. Uh-uh. Negative. This $28 sliver of trout still has about $9 to go, and I’m not leaving any of it behind. Enjoy my 11% tip.

Dude, I’m sorry you’ve had such bad restaurant experiences. But really I’m just sorry for everything. You don’t seem like a cool guy. I’m feeling that you’re generally unhappy. As to the plate clearing thing, you know, see above. Sorry for trying to clear your plate. Sorry for making you scream IN ALL CAPS! (Is that a professional writing trick? I always thought that was limited to the comment sections on Internet forums.)

Trust me, I want you to order a second drink. I’m going to make sure that I offer you a second drink. You seem like the kind of guy that’ll go even more ballistic if he DOESN’T GET HIS SECOND DRINK! Besides, you’re telling me you’ll be underpaying me for my work. I want to make sure that your eleven percent is as inflated as possible.

He goes to France. He spends a hundred and fifty dollars at dinner. He writes in all caps on his New York Post blog. His name is Kyle Smith and he’s a pretty big fucking deal. He doesn’t like you. He wants everything to be just so but he’d rather you make it just so without being seen. Because you are beneath him. You are a servant. You are nothing.

Part of me hopes this response makes an impact, that people read it, that maybe the author will someday see it. He’ll read it and think, wow, I’m such a dick. But of course he won’t change his mind. Even though he probably has a Google alert set to notify him whenever somebody somewhere mentions his name on the Internet, he’s probably already received hundreds of hateful responses. It’s probably why he wrote his piece in the first place, to get a reaction. To rile up a bunch of servants and make everybody a little less happy.

But what I really don’t like is the idea that likeminded idiots will read his piece, will see their own negativity validated in print. They’ll think to themselves, “Yeah! I hate servers also! Fuck them!” and so I just want to put it out there that, no it’s not OK to be a jerk, and it’s not OK to leave an eleven percent tip. Just stay home. While I hate the idea of just adding my name to this chorus of discontent, whatever, Kyle Smith, you’re an asshole, you know it, everybody knows it, and I can’t say it enough. Fuck you.

Howdy folks

I want to start saying howdy. Howdy folks. I wonder if I just start saying it, if people will give me a reaction or not. I won’t even try to ease it in. It’ll just be like one day I’ll wake up, go to work, and when I get to work, whoever sees me first and goes, “Hey Rob,” I’ll just respond, “Howdy.” I’m picturing this playing out in my head and I’m wondering if that other person would say anything at all. Probably not. If somebody said howdy to me in the morning, I’d just think to myself in my head, well that had to be about as painful as this day is going to get, and so maybe I’d be relieved. But I’d really just be glad to be away from whoever said that to me.

Let’s say I say howdy to somebody in the morning and I don’t get a reaction. So I keep it up. I keep saying howdy to everyone I see that day. Are people going to start talking amongst themselves? “Hey, did Rob say howdy to anybody else this morning?” Or am I overinflating my already inflated sense of self, just assuming that people are even paying attention to me in the morning, let alone having side discussions about my greetings?

I have to reverse the situation again, imagining somebody else saying howdy to me. I’d totally ignore it. I’d think to myself, well, somebody sure wants a little extra attention today. And I’m not going to be the one to give it to them. But it would probably eat away at me inside. Howdy? Is that person even from Texas? Do people really say howdy in Texas or is that just something they do on TV?

Every once in a while I’ll meet somebody new and we’ll have a totally regular conversation and maybe ten or fifteen minutes into it I’ll ask, “So where are you from?” and they’ll be like, “Oh, St. Louis, Missouri” or “Dallas.” And I’m just like, what? You don’t even have what I imagine to be a Southern accent. And so I’m lead to believe that people don’t really talk like that in real life, you know with the drawl and the “Hey y’all,” and the “Howdy pardner.” Either that or the effects of national TV have finally changed all once regional accents, making everybody talk the way everybody talks on TV, which is what I just assume to be regular.

But even that’s not the case, because I live in New York but I don’t talk with the whole stereotypical New York accent. I’d try to write it out phonetically, but that’s what other people do when they’re trying to make fun of New York online, like on message boards and stuff, and I always think to myself, I don’t know anybody that talks like that in real life.

Well, even that’s only partially true. Sure I’m not personally friends with anybody who talks like they just walked off the set of the Sopranos. But I’ll run into somebody who really lays it on pretty thick every now and then. And I always think to myself, all right buddy, I get it, you’re out New Yorking me. And this is something I’m very sensitive to, because I didn’t grow up in New York City, I grew up like five miles across the Queens border on Long Island. And so it’s always this tough situation, every once in a while I’ll come across somebody who’s all about New York, born and raised NYC, much more New York than me, I never leave New York kind of New York. And what do I do, do I fight it? Do I embrace my Long Island roots?

Honestly I think all of my problems might be solved by simply incorporating howdy into my everyday vocabulary. It’ll give people a bunch of mixed messages that I won’t ever feel inclined to explain. I started this nonsense imagining everybody’s individual reactions to me saying howdy. But even if nobody said anything, even if everybody just pretended to ignore it, there would come a day weeks after I’ve started saying howdy on an individual basis where I’d walk into a room with several if not all of my coworkers, and I’d say something like, “Howdy folks. How’re y’all doing today?”

And maybe nobody would say anything. Maybe they’d be like, “Where did Rob grow up? New York? Long Island? Atlanta?” But again, I’m probably over imagining the whole thing. And really, I’m reading this back to myself, because that’s what I always do, I read it out loud to make sure it sounds natural, and I can’t get through it. I keep getting stuck on the howdy, like I just can’t get myself to say it. And maybe that’s what would happen in real life. It would just sound awful, ridiculous, and people would start to hate me.

But it’s silly to make fun of how we talk. It’s all English. And sure, it’s easy to caricature the differences, but we’re all more or less on the same page. Although it’s funny. I never met anybody who had a really Boston-like Boston accent. And I’ve seen videos of JFK talking and I’m just like, what’s wrong with that guy? Did he have a stroke or something?