Playground bully
Disclaimer: I love that the French rip each other apart for fun. Qui aime bien, châtie bien, as the saying goes. If this proverb has any real value, I can consider myself adored.
Until only recently, I was not a fan of online chatting. It seemed like the most ridiculous way to communicate, systematically abused with friends who could just as easily be telephoned, or talked to in person because they are your roommate. And I won't even go into the hives that decorate my derma when faced with the truncated, unintelligible-to-the-newcomer pidgin English (or whatever language you happen to chat away in) that serves as net Esperanto, and more often than not sprouts up like weeds elsewhere, outside of the sphere of pop-up dialogs and personalized icons.
So, you can imagine my dismay when, sometime in early March, I received an e-mail from a colleague indicating that it was essential that I set up an MSN account if I wished to function efficiently within the office, read: argue over which local restaurant merits our lunch-hour presence, and be privy to the latest optical illusion web sites.
With an enthusiasm to rival Scrooge heading to Santa's village at the mall, I begrudgingly signed up for Gates' modern-day socializing salon. No sooner had I closed my horse-themed window, than my desktop tool-bar began flashing furiously, virtually shouting at me that the above-mentioned colleague had something terribly important to share RIGHT NOW.
Furrowing my brows (which I've really got to stop doing, before I end up like many of the women I encounter in the métro) I clicked on the pulsing alert. Erreur. Far from diving into a portal where internal communication about clients and projects and how to get through them without acquiring nervous tics, I found myself face to face with my first MSN échange de tirs à boulets rouges.
Hein? Is the person with whom I really do sit within arm's reach actually spinning a chat about my crow's feet and under-eye circles? Did I seriously just read a joke about my snoring proving bothersome to those trying to get work done? Potiche? Pétasse? Hargneuse? And where can I find links refuting the American malaise for locating countries on a world map? (Stop furrowing the brows!)
Fast-forward to present and the MSN montage fade-ins and outs would show me demonically pounding away on my keyboard as I stifle incredulous giggles, screenshots of online English/French dictionaries, and rapid-fire mouse-clicking as I rotate from Excel to Word docs to tiny MSN windows.
You see, while my verbal acumen and rapier-like wit (okay, maybe closer to an all-purpose chef's knife... but a Henckels) may dull and fail me in face-to-face combat en français, give me a keyboard and access to my MSN account, and watch the sparks fly and my aggression glide carelessly through the identity of an arabian horse. The time drag that normally makes MSN so bloody irritating is rhythmically perfect for the time it takes my combative alter-ego to translate roasts into French.
It's elating, it's cathartic, and more, it's taught me more than one way to skin a French cat.
Until only recently, I was not a fan of online chatting. It seemed like the most ridiculous way to communicate, systematically abused with friends who could just as easily be telephoned, or talked to in person because they are your roommate. And I won't even go into the hives that decorate my derma when faced with the truncated, unintelligible-to-the-newcomer pidgin English (or whatever language you happen to chat away in) that serves as net Esperanto, and more often than not sprouts up like weeds elsewhere, outside of the sphere of pop-up dialogs and personalized icons.
So, you can imagine my dismay when, sometime in early March, I received an e-mail from a colleague indicating that it was essential that I set up an MSN account if I wished to function efficiently within the office, read: argue over which local restaurant merits our lunch-hour presence, and be privy to the latest optical illusion web sites.
With an enthusiasm to rival Scrooge heading to Santa's village at the mall, I begrudgingly signed up for Gates' modern-day socializing salon. No sooner had I closed my horse-themed window, than my desktop tool-bar began flashing furiously, virtually shouting at me that the above-mentioned colleague had something terribly important to share RIGHT NOW.
Furrowing my brows (which I've really got to stop doing, before I end up like many of the women I encounter in the métro) I clicked on the pulsing alert. Erreur. Far from diving into a portal where internal communication about clients and projects and how to get through them without acquiring nervous tics, I found myself face to face with my first MSN échange de tirs à boulets rouges.
Hein? Is the person with whom I really do sit within arm's reach actually spinning a chat about my crow's feet and under-eye circles? Did I seriously just read a joke about my snoring proving bothersome to those trying to get work done? Potiche? Pétasse? Hargneuse? And where can I find links refuting the American malaise for locating countries on a world map? (Stop furrowing the brows!)
Fast-forward to present and the MSN montage fade-ins and outs would show me demonically pounding away on my keyboard as I stifle incredulous giggles, screenshots of online English/French dictionaries, and rapid-fire mouse-clicking as I rotate from Excel to Word docs to tiny MSN windows.
You see, while my verbal acumen and rapier-like wit (okay, maybe closer to an all-purpose chef's knife... but a Henckels) may dull and fail me in face-to-face combat en français, give me a keyboard and access to my MSN account, and watch the sparks fly and my aggression glide carelessly through the identity of an arabian horse. The time drag that normally makes MSN so bloody irritating is rhythmically perfect for the time it takes my combative alter-ego to translate roasts into French.
It's elating, it's cathartic, and more, it's taught me more than one way to skin a French cat.
Comments
negrito, you first.