Huh?

Standing in line at the supermarket, the elderly man before me turned around and said, 'Plarf gnuggle shruft.' 'Excuse me?' I ventured. 'Snorf packle ploon a lorf', he continued, pointing at tins of cat food sitting on a shelf.
If there's a noisy environment, a dialect or mumbling, I usually can't decipher what people say. In my experience, asking 'What?' is useless.
Here, I only replied 'yes', which did the trick but sounded unfriendly. To his elaboration that 'wreth in hoky smurge', I agreed in a similar way.
I sometimes wonder if I'm not the victim of a practical joke.

Posted by cronopio at 12:15 AM, August 08, 2002 | Comments (0)