I'm not your fucking girlfriend or JuanitaTech keeps it real

The BBQ Pit
1

Actually, that’s not true. I didn’t keep it real.

Last week I had abdominal surgery. While I was in recovery, one of the nurses kept referring to me as ‘girlfriend’. But she didn’t say it as ‘girlfriend’. It was more like girlfriend.

“How ya feelin’, girlfriend?”

“Wake up, girlfriend!”

“It’s time to go to the bathroom, girlfriend.”

She didn’t refer to the patient next to me as girlfriend. She called her Ms. WhateverHerLastNameWas. As I was too high on morphine, I couldn’t keep it real (thanks Dave) and call her on it.

Listen up, bitch. I’m not your fucking girlfriend. I don’t think you’re any hipper or cooler because you call me that. I don’t think you’re ‘down’ and, hence, will not reveal to you the next buzzword we ultracool and eternally hip black people plan on using, so there! Ms. Tech will do quite nicely, thankyouverymuch.

It can be argued that, maybe, she calls all her friends girlfriend and felt so comforted by my omnipresent air of hipness that she could let her hair down and be her true self. The case could also be made that Ms. WhateverHerLastNameWas was an older lady and therefore no longer qualified as a girlfriend. It cannot be argued, however, that my last name is so hard to pronounce that only girlfriend will do because my last name is a monosyllabic adjective that one learns when one is three years old.
JuanitaTech, fully admitting she’s getting old when she actually prefers to be referred to as Ms. Tech.

2

Your last name is “shit”?!?! :eek:

I agree with the rant though. Part of our egalitarian, classless, American society unfortunately is inappropriate informality in settings where formal address should be taken for granted.

3

I second that! I HATE when people refer to me as girlfriend, homie, babe… It irritates the SHIT out of me. I HAVE an NAME damnit!! :mad:

4

[QUOTE=JuanitaTech]

my last name is a monosyllabic adjective that one learns when one is three years old.

[QUOTE]

Brown?

5

Hey, I’m there.

Once upon a time, I worked as a waiter in a fancy restaurant. We wore tuxedos, and were expected to address the guests in a VERY specific manner. We took a class in how to do just that.

“Yes, sir, the roast beef is excellent today.”

“Mmm… sir would perhaps prefer the salmon; there are those who don’t like the look of the turbot today.”

“Would madam like a fresh set of silverware?”

In short, we took a little course on how to look and act like butlers before we ever set foot on the floor. Considering the tippage, we did it, too.

For my last wedding anniversary, I took my dearest to a very, very nice restaurant. Dress code and all.

Waiter, in full tux with wine tasting cup, wanders up and says, “Hey dude. Can I get you guys anything?”

I stared at him. It occurred to him to point out that my wife was not a guy, but I was still having trouble believing a waiter had addressed me in that manner.

We ordered. “Cool,” he said. “Yeah, the es-KAR-got is pretty good. Okay, I’ll set you guys up. Back in a minute.”

The word “guys” was a running theme with this waiter. The service was excellent. He was very good about serving quickly, keeping glasses full, no problem. But invariably, when he opened his mouth, it was to ask if “you guys okay, over here?” “Can I get you guys anything?”

MY WIFE IS NOT A &%$#@ GUY!!!

And how could anyone think she was, with cleavage like that?

6

Amen, girlfriend! You go girl! [snaps fingers and swivels neck]

I have a coworker who calls me and only me “girlfriend” all the time. I roll with it because I think it’s funny. Plus, it’s better than “nigress”, which everyone else calls me.

7

What, are you saying you don’t like white people talking to you as if you only understand street argot? I can picture your nurse volunteering medical aid on a flight, “Excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive!”

Srr, you just don’t know your purpose. Just as gay men have no sex urges or lives of our own and only exist to be nurturing best friends to lonely straight women and to makover hapless straight men with our universally impeccable fashion sense, black people are supposed to give white folks secondary coolness by letting them talk to you as if every black person, from Colin Powell to Oprah, were a drug-addled rapper.

Now I guess you’ll tell us that you don’t regularly add -izzle to your noun stems.

8

Only this morning the postman said “Thanks dot!” (I spent the morning thinking - ‘dot?’ WHY ‘dot’?)'when I signed for a package. I’ve also been “duckie” “duck” “love” and “pet” as well as a dozen other names. The only one I hate is ‘pet’. Only my head of year back in school got away with that one. The rest I don’t mind. Some are actually quite funny.

Although I agree that in some situations a more formal tone should be taken.

9

Ugh. The ‘you go girl’ years were the worse. Thank god that shit’s over. Half the white people in the tri-county area were telling me to ‘go’.

10

Holy Shit!!! People actually call you this?

11

Ha! Made you look! :smiley:

12

Geez, Stuffy. You so need to get your sarcasm bone looked at.

13

Admit it. You just don’t know. :wink:

14

I hadn’t had my coffee yet. :smiley:

15

Maybe they just wanted you gone. :smiley:

At least the nurse didn’t say “how’s your abdomenizzle my nizzle?”

I call the black people I know the same thing I call the white people I know, which is usually “dude” or “man” and usually preceeded with “what’s up” or “yo”.

The “yo” may have been trouble in '85 but its too prevalent now.

16

While there’s no attempt at outside-of-your-race hipness here, it does irritate the shit out of me when people call me “buddy”. One guy at work does this all the time.

“I just got a look at that new thing and it looks great…thanks, Buddy!”
:mad: There is where I start entertaining the idea of removing his eyeballs with an oyster fork.

17

Sorry, buddy, I’ll try to remember that.
Oops.

18

You work with Pauley Shore?

19

I think the real tragedy here is that you didn’t call the nurse home-skillet. You have offered her a joint or something too.

20

Mine is ‘big guy’, as in what’s up big guy. I mean geez, I only weigh 220 now, be original.