Midwest Points

Game Time

I have taken up a game. Or rather I've started keeping score. I have always been a big fan of giving out points to my friends and family for feats of courage and awesomeness. And as a summer camp counselor I was constantly bestowing "cool points" to my many campers. Currently I am counting Midwest Points.

First Point 

The first incident of self-awarded Midwest Points stemmed from an accidental 'mispronunciation', where I told a man that his family was "soooo cuuuuuute" in dialect that was not at all Californian twang. The oddest thing about the incident is that I couldn't replicate the pronunciation again. It was as if Thor's Minnesotan grandson Ole, struck me with the ability to speak in midwest tongues for just a moment. And while we are the subject of accents, apparently I have a very odd one. No matter where I am living, Sydney, Idaho, California, people are always telling me I have an accent. People have even questioned my roots in my hometown.

Origins Unknown

I think it's because I was born with an accent.There are two important factors when considering the time period in which I learned to speak. The first, I had many ear infections, which were believed to have altered my speech. The letter "R" did not exist for me. My dad Mark, was Mahk. A jar was a jah, and green was geen. With the exception of geen, my childhood pronunciation could be considered straight up Bostonian. Which brings me to the second factor, my caregivers. My Grammmie was the most loving Bostonian woman in all of southern California. And her accent was as thick as her hugs. Me and Grammie spent some time together, alot of time together. And for that matter I went to endless pahties with aunties and uncles, where my mom always lost her cah keys.

The St. Lucia Incident 

 I lived in my unknown accent until second grade. Mrs. Fuchs, our Irish music teacher had settled on a international themed Christmas pageant. The second grade was presenting Sweden's St. Lucia Day. My Dad helped me memorize all the lines for the role of Inga. And after my public try-out Mrs. Fuchs told the whole class that it was so nice that I had added an accent.

Wait.
An accent.
What accent?

That spring I started speech therapy.
Two years later, I had an "R"
& 50 SPEECH POINTS.

Second Point

But back to my most recent accumulation. Last week I had a major Midwest moment. I had my first bowl of pasta salad, ever. It was a Santa Fe pasta salad and it was filled with black beans, celery, bell peppers and delicious southwest sensibility. 2 MIDWEST POINTS. Since then I have also sampled a BBQ sauce based pasta salad. 1 MIDWEST POINT. And just yesterday two ladies at a table I was waiting told me that I "was just soooo nice". Being called nice by people who are known as being "North Dakota nice", deservers 4 MIDWEST POINTS.

The Santa Fe

SCORE.