Sunday, June 22, 2008

Boyz in the Hood

OK, so I'm selling security systems door-to-door this summer to help pay for law school. Here's an excerpt from a conversation I had whilst speaking with on of the prepubescent youths I met on my route near inner-city Indianapolis:









9-year-old boy
Hey! Whatchoo doin' there?

Me
Just selling alarms. What are you doing?

9-year-old boy
Tricks on my bike. How old are you?

Me
25. You?

9-year-old boy
Na-ane (nine). Can you do tyyyte tricks like this?
(Boy sits on seat of bike with legs hanging over the handle bars.)

Me
(Trying not too sound too lame) Yeah, but it'd have to be a bigger bike.

9-year-old boy
Tyyte. Now what about ramping one of those cars up to the street lamp? Then down the roof? That'd be tyyyyyyyyyyte!

Me
Probably if I had a harness.

6-year-old brother of 9-year-old boy
HJakjshasjh h bike jaijfn jkljlakj bike lalkh. Tyyyyyyyyte!

9-year-old boy
Hey, shut up. Man's gotta go to work!
(Pause)
Can you like stand on the top of the bike and then do a flip and then land back on the bike? That'd be tyyyyyte!

Me
You mean like SpiderMan?

9-year-old boy
Yeah.

Me
I don't think so.

6-year-old brother of 9-year-old boy
HJakjshasjh h SpiderMan jaijfn jkljlakj SpiderMan lalkh. Tyyyyyyyyte!

9-year-old boy
Hey, shut up. Man's gotta go to work.
(Pause)
Can you ramp up the car on the light, then do a pop-a-wheelie on the top? That'd be tyyyyyte!

--------------

So this went on, in this pattern, for about 10 minutes. Each day I passed those kids, the same thing would happen, with the 9-year-old kid showing me some new tricks he learned from his older, much more skilled brother. Because "he was 20."

Tyte.

7 comments:

Katie said...

Thanks for the giggle this Monday morning! :)

Liz said...

That's rad. I love the garbled comments of the 6-year-old. What a great conversation.

Unknown said...

I think you're missing an opportunity to make some real life long friends here. It seems like you have lots of interests that are similar. You like talking, they like talking. They have imaginations and you imagine you're helping people with security systems.

Rachel Teran said...

I'm pretty sure that this is the greatest blog I've ever read in my entire life.

And it gives me a reason to smile when I'm working, which is a feat in itself.

You, Mr. Gagnon, are a lifesaver.
And say hi to your wifey, because I love her soo...

Steven and Natasha Hopkins said...

I think it is so awesome that the 6-year-old uses words that contain mainly letters located on the home row of the keyboard! Wow.

Amy said...

You should totally have whipped out "Snappa drappa" on him.

Aubrey said...

Hi John and Kelsi! Oh - I finally found your blog and Courtney's - how exciting. Keep us posted on the future Gagnon and I hope it's okay if I add your blog to my blog list...