Pardon?

You know how people have different ways of expressing that they didn’t hear something you said? There’s the classic, “What?” the “Pardon?” and the “Come again?”

Apparently in Texas they have their own expression for this situation.

I was in the Dallas airport, ordering food, and the woman taking my order said something I didn’t understand. This resulted in an overly lengthy, somewhat comedic exchange.

I said, “What?”

She said her thing again.

I still didn’t catch it. Whatever she said made no sense in my brain. And her bit of accent wasn’t helping either of us. I was forced to say, yet again, “What?”

Finally she repeated her original question: “Do you want any sauces?”

I answered her again, and she finally seemed satisfied with my response.

Is ranch called something else in Texas? I should think that of all the 50 states, “ranch” would be most easily understood here.

It wasn’t until I stepped away from the counter that my brain deciphered what she’d said. It was: “What happened?”

Really? When you don’t know what someone said, you say, “What happened?”

Okay. That’s definitely a new one.

In other news, Middle Child received a key chain as a prize for the library summer reading program. After the library we went to the ever-busy Costco where she keep speaking loudly about “her hooker.” As in, “Where’s my hooker? Have you seen my hooker? Did I lose my hooker?!”

We kept trying to encourage her to 1) keep her voice down, and 2) call it something else for Heaven’s sake!

My daughter’s hooker. Isn’t she nice looking? And she sure came cheap.

What do you say when you don’t understand someone? Do you like ranch dipping sauce, or are you more of honey mustard kind of person? If you have any experience with hookers, please, do NOT tell me. (Great, what kind of searches are going to bring up my blog now?)