Thursday, September 16, 2010

The People and The New People.

Early in our marriage, we were friends with a really lovely couple who among other things did a little couples marriage counseling with us. During that counseling, they taught us one thing which has really stuck with us--something which has been useful multiple times over the past ten years.

As often happens, this couple sort of drifted out of our lives. We've not seen either of them in several years, and although we are still vaguely in touch with them on facebook and such, we don't really know them anymore.

A funny thing happened at some point. One of use, in a conversation, found ourselves temporarily unable to remember their names, and instead referred to them as "The People". The first time this happened, of course, it took some explaining for the other of us to understand to whom we were referring. Strangely, this name stuck, and gradually over the years we stopped using their names altogether when we were referring to them in conversation, instead simply calling them "The People", or when referring to one of them "The Husband of The People" and other variations on this theme.

Tonite The People came up in our conversation, and I realized I could no longer access their names. I have a sense that I could probably find them in my list of facebook friends and thus be reminded, but as it stands, I honestly can't remember their first nor last names. They have permanently become "The People".

Perhaps even more interestingly, since we moved to Australia a new couple has begun to vie for the name "The People". I can, of course, still totally remember *their* names. However "The New People" also works now, in conversation--Megs and I both know about whom we are talking. =)

Your turn--tell us about a bit of private jargon which you use.

2 comments:

  1. that's hilarious!
    me and my friends have done this on numerous times - especially when they or I have someone we talk about frequently but who the other does not know. We create a name for them, i.e. I have a friend who is a zookeeper and so in stories she becomes my "zookeeper friend" or my friend and I have decided that all our ex boyfriends should no longer be called by just their name. We add FACE to the end of the their name (i.e. john FACE) and the face should be said with some derison... anyways. :) your blog made me laugh.

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  2. DeeDee--hooray! Here's to laughter! =) I *love* the _____ FACE. Perfect!

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