As a college student, I worked in the housewares departments of two discount department stores. These days, shoppers still sometimes ask me where things are. On more than one occasion a shopper has told me that they thought I was an employee. I must have the right look.
Today, as I strode a main aisle in our friendly neighborhood multinational retailer, an older fellow asked me, “Do you know where in the Sam Hill the mouthwash is?”
I didn’t hesitate: “Same aisle as the toothpaste, two aisles down.”
As for Sam Hill, he’s in Green’s Dictionary of Slang.
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
Hill, Sam
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
You should see me in a plant nursery... I can't keep my mouth shut, opining about plants to other customers. People always think I work there and ask me where things are. (Which I cannot help with most of the time.)
ReplyDeleteAs a novice assistant in a flower-garden effort, I’d be grateful that kind of opining.
ReplyDeleteBack when I flew a lot, I had some passengers mistake me for a Delta flight attendant as I was wearing navy pants and navy sweater and happened to be standing in the middle galley reading a magazine while passengers were boarding. I just pointed to where their seats were.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reference to the Green's dictionary of slang. That one is a keeper!
kirsten
You’re welcome, Kirsten. And that’s a great story. Just play along with them!
ReplyDeleteDo you remember when Cosmo Kramer became Moviefone? (I hope that’s the right spelling.)
Kramer as Moviefone -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XagGEi_n_ok
ReplyDeleteI had totally forgotten him doing that.
When the first season of Seinfeld came out, only a few of us (that I knew) were watching it. It was almost like a secret handshake!
kirsten
Lucky people! The days when a network gave a show time to find an audience seem long gone.
ReplyDeleteI worked with a woman who used that expression all the time. So much that I picked it up. It wasn't in my parents' lexicon.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if people deliberately use it to avoid the word “hell” or if they just know it as an expression.
ReplyDelete