From a couple of hoo-hoos

Excerpt from Alphabet Juice by Roy Blount, Jr.

"Back in the early eighties I was to make a speech in some out-of-the-way place in Pennsylvania. A driver picked me up and the Pittsburgh airport. He was an affable sort, but he kept saying things that seemed oddly off, somehow. We were going to pass by Gettysburg, he said. That didn't seem right, especially when he said, 'That was where they spent the winter, you know, without any shoes. Feet wrapped in rags, if they even had that. And we think we have it hard.'

"Oh, I thought, he means Valley Forge.

"I asked him about a sign in front of a private home we passed: BARB'S BIG PIES!

"'Oh yeah,' he said. 'That lady bakes famous lemon pies. They're real big. Like a chef's hat. The meringue part alone is this thick!'

"He held his fingers about an inch apart, which didn't seem particularly thick for meringue, especially on a pie comparable to a toque.

"Then he started talking about his wife. 'I made her a Valentine for her birthday. Out of Styrofoam and copper wire? The heart went right through the middle of the arrow.'

"Well, you could, after all, look at the depiction of a pierced heart that way, but I was still trying to sort out what seemed askew about the image--in fact, I was beginning to wonder about being way out in the middle of nowhere with this man when he said, 'She's smart, you know. We grew up together. I wasn't good in school, at all. She was. Oh yeah. She was a hoo-h0o.'

"'I'm sorry?' I said.

"'A hoo-hoo. You know. Hoo-hoos Among American High School Students.'

We got where we were supposed to. He was good at what he did. But I hadn't realized that anybody's dyslexia extended as far as pie.

But back in the day when New York cabdrivers were much more likely to chat nonstop in English with their passengers than in some exotic native tongue over their ear-clip phones, I did have a cabbie who, after nearly running over an elderly lady, said in a reassuring tone, 'Nah, you don't wanna hit a pedestrian. 'Cause you have to fill out a form. And if you don't dot all your t's and cross your i's...'"

...You get utter hilariousness. Who says a book needs a plot to be entertaining? Good old Roy loves language just as much as I do. He may just become one of my new favorite authors. Along with the author of Ella Minnow Pea, of course.

Hoo-hoo. It kills me every time. My poor husband thought I was nuts because I was cracking up as I was typing this for you all. He's used to it, though. I keep interrupting him to tell him the etymology of a particular word, like grisly (comes from the same root as the words Christ and cream, of all things). He just says "wow" and then is free to continue his pursuits until I interrupt him again. He's pretty nice about it.