T Time

“Playoff hockey is the bess, game 7 the bess of the bess,” my friend Brock texted me. “Game 7 OT would be the bess of the bess of the bess.”

His keyboard hadn’t malfunctioned. No typographical errors could be located by yours truly, a noted grammar snob. Brock was simply affecting a malapropism we’ve been celebrating for more than a decade.

When I worked in a call center, one the brass unironically referred to as The Call Center of Excellence, a diminutive girl named Hang (rhymes with song) sat two rows away from me. She wasn’t known for her work ethic, often claiming she had a cold when calling out sick despite telling co-workers she had planned a day trip, nor did she have excellent linguistic skills when speaking to irate callers. She did have big, pretty eyes, however, and smiled regularly, even on days when she seemed otherwise defeated by life.

We didn’t talk much — if she’d smoked cigarettes we could’ve shared our customer complaints once an hour — but I loved hearing gossip from the woman who sat beside her.

“Hang was telling us about her date last night,” Becky told me. “She said the guy was drunk before they were done eating. Claimed he was the worse.”

“The…worse?”

“Yeah,” Becky said while inhaling. “Direct quote: The worse date ever.”

“Are you unaware that the correct word is ‘worst’?”

“I’m just quoting Hang.”

“Or are you making fun of her?”

“Nooo!” she squealed. “That’s how she says ‘worst.’”

“Really?”

“You never noticed? She says bess for best, worse for worst.”

“Do you like her outfit today? She’s very well-dress.”

“Cut it out,” Becky said while laughing. “She’s wearing a sun dressed, bud. Aren’t those your favorite?”

“Indeed. The bess.”

And so it began.

To be fair to Hang, I cannot speak Vietnamese. Cannot speak Spanish either, a language I spent five years studying, even acing exams in one advanced class. But as a skilled English speaker, I am fond of maximizing pleasure when someone sabotages my mother tongue.

“Where’d you order from?” I asked Hang one day while she chewed a bite of dinner at her desk.

“Wok on the Wild Side,” she said about the brilliantly named local Chinese restaurant.

“Is that crab rangoon?”

“Yeah. Not very good. No pineapple.”

“I’m so hungry, I’d ingess it anyway.”

“You want some?”

“Sure, thank you!” I said. “Do you have an extra napkin? I don’t wanna make a messed.”

Kaitlen, another co-worker, suspected something was up as Becky muted her phone to laugh while a caller blathered on in her ear.

“I need a cigarette,” she said. “All this guy keeps yelling at me is ‘Come on!’”

“You should ask him, ‘Where? My chess?’”

Part of me wonders what story there is here beyond comparisons to other acts of ugly Americanism, but numerous co-workers tried to help Hang. It wasn’t a language barrier that ultimately got her fired, it was the fact that she struggled to understand how to do her job correctly at all. She “accidentally” hung up on a couple callers during moments of frustration, she regularly doled out misinformation, and she exited one shift early without being granted permission to do so. She was young and immature, a co-worker we’ve all had at least once, one usually functioning as a footnote, if at all.

Yet it’s amazing how strong a role people who mean little to our lives can play in them. I think of Hang when I see toothpaste (Cress), whenever I glimpse one thick-spined novel on my bookshelf (Infinite Jess, the dystopian tale of how the world will be conquered by never-ending Jessicas), when feeling straw in my mailbox (a typically lazy pigeon’s ness), and even when spotting the police (“You’re under arress!”). She has enriched the quotidian for twelve years, at least (“At lease,” you’re thinking), and will continue to do so if I keep the same judgy assholes in my life.

How could I ever explain her gift if I ran into her? Prefacing my shameful divulgence, I’d detail my love of French cinema and Ethiopian jazz, proof that mocking her sibilance came from “the right place,” one of a cultured gentleman, not a condescending monster, and that the lives of others mattered to me because of their imperfections and differences. Maybe I’d mention how often I harmlessly flirted with the middle-aged Vietnamese cashier at the grocery store, insisting my total be “rounded down” ten or twenty dollars each week, some reverse goodwill to benefit only me. Now that I consider it, that’s kind of what referencing Hang has been doing all this time.

My imagination transports me to a vision of Hang working on a project. She has a stack of construction paper, a ruler, and a pencil. Eight scissor cuts later, a perfect T presents itself, which she tosses into a basket on her table. She’s matured, working a job that brings her contentment, a feeling she passes along to her husband and son, men bonded by their love of what else — hockey.

“There’s a game seven tonight,” her spouse tells her as he kisses her on the cheek, a hat sporting the logo of his prized team atop his head.

“Doesn’t get better than this!” her son adds, wrapping his mother in a tight hug as she pushes the scissor — how Hang pluralized it — across the tablecloth to avoid an accident while he sports his favorite player’s jersey.

“What’re you up to tonight?” one of them asks her.

“Oh, nothing,” she says. “I’ll watch.”

When she pretended to watch the game with her boys and scrolled to my Bumble profile, a profile hinting at my need for an Asian female companion, we’d match. A week or so later, I’d sense that I already knew the light brown-skinned girl opposite me, especially when she jokingly asked about her low-cut top, “Are you looking at my breass?”

Embarrassed by her inquiry, I’d compliment her blouse and excuse myself moments afterward, castigating myself for drinking too much water and interrupting our rapport. Upon returning to the table, there’d be no sign of her except for a sealed envelope by her placemat. Opening it, I’d read her version of a ransom note, two words made with construction paper taped inside: GET FUCKT.

Driving home to be on the couch with her family, she’d stop at a light and read the message I sent her in the dating app: “I’m so sorry to tell you this, but you’ve regress. I’m [sic] of it all.”

As always, she’d have the last word: “Fuck off, Porgy. Nobody likes a pess.”

It would cut me deep enough to go find a nurst.