Deborah Lipp

There’s a series of radio commercials that I tend to hear whenever I listen for a weather report while getting ready for work. These are Subaru commercial specifically targeted to New York radio. The most recent set points out that more Subarus are sold in New York than any other state. This is obviously because New York is the most populous state that has snowy roads, but the commercials tell me that it’s because New Yorkers are special special people who want special special Subarus.

Whatever.

All of these commercials end as follows: “That’s why, in our opinion, Subaru is the official car of New York.”

And then, each and every morning, my head explodes.

This morning on the way to work, I was stopped at a red light and saw two vanity plates directly in front of me, side-by-side: TOOACT1V and 1TRULOVE.

It felt like a coded message that I didn’t understand.

Heard on the radio, for some herbal supplement:

Did you know that lack of sleep or insufficient sleep is one of the chief causes of fatigue?

I was thinking about a new post, and I got stuck on a word.

“Friend.”

Because the person I was going to refer to is not a friend. Neither is he an acquaintance. It seems to me there’s a significant gap between those two words, filled by a vast number, perhaps a majority, of our social relationships.

A friend is an intimate, a confidant. They know some personal stuff, they know you with your proverbial or literal hair down. Obviously, there are degrees of friendship; they won’t all help you bury the bodies, but a friend is someone on the inside.

Acquaintances are people you know, and that’s about that. You’ve been introduced. They’re present or former co-workers, or clients, a friends-of-a-friend, or the real estate agent of your brother-in-law.

But what about everyone else? The people whom you hug when you see them, with whom you keep in touch and occasionally drop a line to, but who don’t know your birthday or your problems. There are many people whom I know, for whom “acquaintance” is too cold, and “friend” is too warm. Often I say “someone I’m friendly with.” They are friendlies. Or something.

Anyway, I want a new word. And here it is: A call for you to nominate new words that you want. What do you say instead of a word you wish really existed? What word do you grope for regularly that simply is not there?

Don’t smoosh muffins on your mother’s face.

I don’t even remember this (although the visual is clear enough). I found it in my notes. But, well, visual.

I was at a noisy party, and my friend Mary was on one side of me, while Joyce was on the other, and we started talking about what fantastic hair Joyce has. And I dunno, I ended up touching her hair and saying “Wow, you really have a lot of hair!” And Joyce said “Yeah, my tub drain hates me.”

And Mary said “What!?”

And I repeated it to Mary, and she said “Oh! I thought you said your tangerine hates you, and I couldn’t figure that out.”

And Joyce said “My tangerine hates me, too.”

Today I saw a commercial for some sort of medical product, and they said

If you have respiratory problems and are having trouble breathing…

So…there are people with respiratory problems who don’t have trouble breathing?