Weekly Stuttering Roundup

Apologizes for the very late post. I was traveling all day Friday from Saudi to Philly, and then I spent today with family. Nonetheless, there was some stuttering during the past week … as usual.

One thing that did happen that I didn’t stutter on was not getting all my luggage in Philly. One of my two bags came through, and then they (British Airways) had a person make an announcement that well, a whole bunch of bags didn’t show up. Fortunately I didn’t have to speak — he just gave us a form. I always hate having to read off a number to someone behind the counter. The last time it happened they verbally asked for everything — name, address, phone number. Ugh.

What I did get nervous about during the trip was while standing in line for passport control in Philly. It’s always slightly nerve-wracking. I mean, it shouldn’t be — I’m an American citizen, so … here’s my passport, let’s keep things moving. But there are always questions — how long have you been out, what do you do, what are you doing here, who are you going to see, are you declaring anything? I do pretty well on the questions — keeping them short and to the point. Saying “two weeks” for the duration is tough, so I can get away with “ten days,” if need be. The declaration thing is a big issue, though — I always bring dates. That’s right. Dates with a big D on the front. Saudi dates are a favorite of my parents, so they always ask that I get them. And so if you’re bringing any kind of fruit, you have to declare it — otherwise if you get caught, it’s a huge fine. Not worth it. What I did this time was actually write “dates” on the form (there’s not a space for it, but whatever). I started stuttering out the “d” in dates, and then the passport control guy saw the written word — “dates?” Yep!

Also, the World Cup is going on as … pretty much everybody knows. And of course Luis Suarez was big news because of his biting incident. I would love to talk about this more, but Luis has a pretty tough name for someone who stutters — that L takes a long time to come out, and the ‘s’ of his last name is tied with a ‘w’ basically. Aaargh. So how to even refer to this guy? Just not … The other issue of course are the team names. I could say “Netherlands,” but man, “Holland,” is way easier.

Lastly I was talking to a colleague at work who’s from Sudan about dentistry. I wanted to tell him about how I had my wisdom teeth taken out. But of course … “wisdom” wasn’t going to come out. So I just said, “those teeth … in the back and up there.” He said he understood, but I was really more curious what other people in the world called wisdom teeth. Is that just an American thing?