Saturday, August 23, 2008

Gettin' theyah from heah

Last night, I offered to pick up food for my parents from a restaurant that is almost, but not quite, on the way from my house to theirs.
In establishing that I knew where this restaurant was, I had this exact conversation with my mother.
Mom: It's on the left.
bzzzzgrrrl: I know. I'm just not sure where.
Mom: Right across from the fence place.
bzzzzgrrrl: Um...
Mom: It's a little past the foreign car place. Or where the foreign car place used to be.
It should be said that, for many New Englanders, "where the foreign car place used to be" is a fully legitimate landmark.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is not just New England-specific, or even rural. It may be more of a mark of age and having lived (or visited) a place for many years. Yesterday I had a similar conversation, explaining that a new restaurant had moved into the former storefront of the local music store which had relocated nearby to that building around the corner from where the pizza joint used to be, and a couple of doors down from where our friend Charlie's new sound recording studio is being build, next to where our friend Mark used to have his used book store. Of course, I could have just said that the music store is now in the space where Curves used to be.