Bananas!

One of the supermarkets nearby charges a little more for everything, but you pay for the convenience. It's an easy-in, easy-out kind of shop, ideal for someone just looking to get the fixings for dinner and not much else. Consequently its self-checkout is very popular. I've been listening to electronic voice of the self-checkout computer for years. 

The other day I swung in to get some items that were not available for whatever reason in the bigger store, and while there I got... BANANAS. Why do I cap? Because when you have to weigh produce, the self-checkout computer voice -- I call her Cloris -- has to walk you through the process. And I could hear her in my mind as I made my way to the self-checkout.

You press the button on the screen for produce and the fun begins. "Select the item from the list." Press the button for bananas. 

"Place your . . . BANANAS . . . on the scanner."

Bananas placed. Price calculated. 

"Remove your . . . BANANAS . . . to the checkout area."

I'm not sure of the wording, but that pause before and after loudly announcing the fruit or vegetable of choice sticks with me. Cloris makes those pauses pregnant, and you can almost hear the judgment in her voice. I swear, I'm not going to do anything strange with the BANANAS, Cloris! I just want them for my cornflakes. 

Perhaps she doesn't believe me. Bananas are cheap. They don't have a bar code for her to scan, unlike pints of blueberries and some other things you can get from the produce section. Maybe she thinks I'm weighing dragonfruit or some expensive crap like that on the scale and saying it's bananas. She knows my little scam. 

"Remove your . . . SO-CALLED BANANAS . . . to the checkout area."

I wouldn't do that to you, Cloris! Trust is the cornerstone of our relationship! 

Maybe I should just wait on line for the cashier. this whole thing could be driving me nuts. 

"Place your . . . NUTS . . . on the scanner."

Do not tempt fate, Cloris! 

Random vocalization guy.

The other day I was the only human being awake in the house and I was rinsing dishes to put in the dishwasher. Suddenly I spat out, "So when were you going to tell me about that, BRIAN?"*

Now, this might seem like an odd thing to do, especially since there was no one by that name around, nor even a mouse that we might have named Brian. I had been thinking about my active jobs, specifically a book I'd started editing the day before. Late in the day I'd shot an e-mail off to Brian, the editor, who responded lackadaisically with an answer and tacked on: "Hold off; the author is making more changes to the book."

This is job is piece work, meaning I'm not getting paid for time, just a flat fee. I'd already gone through the front matter and the first chapter. Now I was going to have to go through those again, with no extra money, because the author might have made changes to those sections. And clearly Brian hadn't thought to alert me until I sent him an unrelated question. 

The point is, a random onlooker could be excused in thinking I have some kind of disorder, because I do this stuff all the time. I'll be looking for the cumin in the spice cabinet and suddenly blurt, "Skynet knew the Terminator was going to twentieth-century America -- why did it give him an Austrian accent?" That's because the conversation in my head has just reached an inflection point, and I felt obliged to voice my end out loud. Is this normal?

In some cases I can get away with it, thanks to modern technology. If it's a gorgeous day and I'm driving alone with the windows open and I'm at a light and yell "Clemens should have been thrown out of the game!" and the person in the car next to me notices, he or she could suppose I'm having a conversation (albeit an angry one) with someone on the cell phone, maybe through the dashboard Bluetooth hookup. If I still had the shaggy hair I sported in college, someone could think I was on the phone wearing earbuds when I mumble "That was a ridiculous lie about the vaccines" while walking along, but I haven't got the hair for that style anymore. 

Maybe I'm just alone too much. I can't remember which comedian said it some years ago, but he or she suggested that crazy people should be made to walk in pairs so that they would look like they were having a conversation with each other rather than the voices in their heads. 

Of course, I can walk our big pup Tralfaz, and people could think I was talking to him. That might seem more sane. Unless they're wondering why I'm asking him what the hell he was thinking when he called Rhoda Werner* a gorilla butt in third grade, in which case I think it would be probably seem less sane. 

Now I'm at the point where I'm wondering whether it's worse to look crazy or to be crazy and struggle not to look crazy. Yike! 

😵😜😖

*Names changed to protect myself.

Yakkity yak.

Voices can be deceiving.

When I hear someone on the radio or just know them as a voice on the phone and then I see what they look like, most of the time I'm wrong, or wrongish. When my mental picture is right on the money I feel I deserve a parade.

Usually I can tell a man from a woman by the voice. Not always. Some voices seem a bit borderline, could go either way, but when I think I know what it is, I am dead certain. There was a large and unattractive woman on the subway recently whom I heard before I saw, and I would bet a good hunk of money that however the person chose to dress or identify or whatever, that person's birth certificate said Boy.

A couple of things can lead to an educated guess. Age is almost always apparent. Sometimes very heavy people's jowls give away their weight. And there are issues of race probably related to timbre, bone structure, and God knows what else that may be indicative. Although we've likely all fallen into same trap as Lt. Zachary Graber in the original Taking of Pelham One Two Three, whose conversations with Inspector Daniels led him to believe the possessor of that deep, authoritative voice (African-American actor Julius Harris) was white. "Oh, I, uh, thought you were, uh, like a shorter guy or---I don't know what I thought."

Some of the scariest women and dumpiest men have the most awesome voices, too. Think of that next time you call your Frisky French Nurses Hotline, boys. 

Singing voices can also be weird. Some people with lovely speaking voices can sing like busted trash compactors and vice versa. For decades people wondered how Gomer Pyle could have such an astonishing operatic baritone. Then again, Goober Pyle had a bachelor's in science, so we know TV can be deceiving.

Why do I bring this all up when everyone knows it from childhood? Because it's one of those things that keep shocking us even though we know it so well. We may become accustomed to the idea that a lovely face may hide an evil heart, but never to the idea that a voice and a face may be completely at odds in our imagination. Or as the great baritone Robert Merrill might say, "Well, surprise, surprise, surprise!"