Not Quite a Homonym

Sometimes I hear phrases incorrectly.

I think this is something everyone can relate to. Those moments when someone around you or someone you are conversing with, makes a comment that you misinterpret, mis-hear, or misunderstand.

Sometimes it is easily corrected or ignored.

Sometimes you understand exactly what is being said, even though there is a moment of miscommunication.

And sometimes it ends in hilarity.

For me usually such a situation is remedied in my brain via context clues and inflections. I can understand what is being said regardless of the fumbling speech pattern that seems to have dropped from the lips of my conversation partner.

However, there have been several moments recently where context clues did nothing to correct me and in fact my imaginative brain ran with the incorrect statement until I was corrected.

For instance:

A couple nights ago my sister and I, (we share a bedroom) were getting ready for bed. Climbing under the covers of her bunk, my sister said aloud, “My bed is breathing.”

Now let me explain that it was late at night and we had just finished watching several episodes of the supernatural/fantasy anime XXXholic, so at first, the phrase, re-conjured in my mind, became a joking reference to the series.

However, that's not in my sister's nature.

So, I figured her comment was actually a reference to the wind coming in through the window moving her bedsheets in a way that was easily personified as “breathing”.

Still, that didn't seem like something you say, so casually, I asked her,

“Did you say breathing?”

Nope. What she said was, freezing. Her bed was freezing.

The incident, although hysterical, was nothing compared to what had happened only a day before hand.

My brother was home for the weekend carted back from his little town by his best friend.

To me, it was a strange circumstance because my brother lives several hours away and I was unaware that his best friend, whom I communicate with often, was making said trip. So naturally, I was inclined to ask of my brother how such a plan came to be.

The details of that plan were not as important or lengthy as I thought they would be, but the execution of it was.

My brothers friend showed up in my brothers little town long before my brother had gotten home from work. Being a tiny town with not much industry, there wasn't much for his friend to do.

So, as my brother explained, his friend proceeded to check out the local grocery stores and what not but soon becoming bored with such a useless enterprise, decided to play around and do some Parkwhoring in the parking lot until he was kicked out.

I've never been up to date on the latest fashions nor seen the latest tv shows or movies and I've certainly never been too culturally aware so it was no surprise that I'd never heard of Parkwhoring.

Still, my mind was instantly overwhelmed by the potentiality of such an amazingly exciting sounding game!

Slamming your automobile into gear, revving up the engine in anticipation, waiting for that moment where someone, some helpless and unaware patron would be making their way to the space that seconds ago had been occupied.

You spy them.

You spy the spot they aim for.

And in an exhilarating rush of adrenaline and oil you speed up and cut them off, stealing the spot just before they could enter it.

Windows down in the summer air, you can smell the heat rising off the concrete and once the echo of screeching tires dies down, you can hear the yelling of the driver you just interrupted.

They yell, you ignore.

It's not just 50pts won for stealing the closest spot to the grocery store door, but an additional point bonus for not hitting or scratching anything.

No matter how much they yell, there is nothing they can do about it!

And so you continue, again and again making your move with extreme precision, the game getting more difficult with each succession because the more you Parkwhore, the more likely you will be kicked out and get a game over.

“I've never heard about that,” I conclude my private imaginative moment by making a responsive statement to my brothers recounting.

“You've never heard of Parkour? Street running?”

Illusions shattered I concede that indeed yes, I know what Parkour is.

But if anyone would like to try my apparently newly invented, Parkwhoring, Let me know.

Lessons from Pokemon

I really despise trying to make introduction posts, I find that they often are wordy, either overly self-praising or overly self-critical, and never an accurate portrayal of anything important. 

Or at least, that the way all of my attempts have felt.

So instead, I'm going to tell you a little anecdote, and if you aren't a gamer I apologize, but perhaps you will enjoy it anyway? Or maybe you'll like my future posts? Who knows?

Anyway, here goes.

Before parting ways with my brother for the summer, he handed me a small rectangular case.

“For after you graduate,” he told me.

Inside the case, I instantly discovered a small red cartridge: Pokemon Ruby.

I cannot attest to how happy I was about him lending the game to me. Even though the battery has since run dry.

You see, although I self-proclaimed as an avid gamer, I have never owned a Pokemon game, or a gameboy for that matter.

It isn't because I am against them! Not at all! Quite the opposite, I always wanted one, but I guess it just never worked out. Instead, I made due with the hand-me-ups of my younger siblings. Which worked fine for me, except when it came to 1-save-file games like Pokemon.

ANYWAY.

I told several people about my acquisition and one good friend of mine posed a very good warning to me.

“Rose,” he says. “Now I know you love fire-type Pokemon. But I am warning you now, the first gym is Rock type. Fire is not going to help you. You really should go with one of the other two. Okay?”

“Sure!” I told him.

If only I had remembered...

***BEGIN DRAMATIC RETELLING***

“OH NO!!” I shouted, in a voice that probably startled my fellow residents as the person I had been searching for was attacked by some strange creature in the tall grasses near home.

I was only 10 minutes into the game, but I was hooked. I was so utterly engrossed in the beautiful, heart wrenching storyline that I had forgotten myself for a moment, and if it wasn't for the horror of the situation I might have been embarrassed for myself and my unnecessarily alarming outcry.

Still within those ten minuets, so much had happened!

First, I had to travel in the back of a poorly packed moving truck, fearing with every bump the tumbling of some deadly object upon my poor 12 year old head.

Then, I saw the two biggest men I had ever seen in my life moving our things into the house, only to discover that they weren't men, they were Pokemon!

I already knew about Pokemon, so luckily, the realization was quickly set upon my immature brain. My mother and I had moved out here because of Pokemon, well, because my father was a Pokemon trainer, actually, he was Gym Leader, and personally, I was more than a little eager to follow in his footsteps.

Maybe that's why, the moment I had set my clock on the wall I ran to the Professors' lab.

The next dramatic thing that happened was being told that I had to go and find the Professor myself, all alone, at 12 years old, in this strange new place.

But I did it anyway and now I was shouting in fear for the Professor's life!

“In my bag, get a Pokemon! From my bag! Hurry!” The Professor cried out as he dodged the attacks of the wild beast before him.

I looked at the three Pokeballs inside his pack, knowing that I should carefully consider every aspect about them before making my selection and instead grabbing Torchic because fire is awesome and potentially much be powerful than the other two against the grass/bug/creature/thing that the Professor was currently fighting.

My rescue was, by sheer bravery and skill, a success, and as a reward, I was teamed with a beautiful partner who I named Phoenix.

From there, I trained long and hard.

I collected all 14 of the Pokemon available to me before the first Gym.

I acquired the Cut HM so that once I received that first badge I could cut down all the trees that blocked my way.

I fought and defeated every trainer I crossed paths with, in the interest of strengthening my Pokemon.

And after 7 hours of game play, all 15 of my Pokemon averaged level 10.

Finally, I entered the Stone Gym and successfully defeated the two lackeys inside only to be utterly massacred by the Gym Leader Roxanne in a matter of seconds.

My lesson to you?

DO NOT START THE GAME WITH THE FIRE POKEMON.