Messing with the Tourists

Here's something about me: I like to mispronounce the name of one of the birds from the last post---the heron---and turn it into the same thing that black people call "heroin."

For most white folks "heroin" is a three syllable word that auditorily resembles "HERR-oh-in" whereas in the black communities around America it sounds more like a two syllable "herr-AHN."

So, for me, when I feel like making the older white folks I've just met at a touristy restaurant in Long Beach uncomfortable, I start referring to the heron (usually "HAIR-in) as the great gray herr-AHN and watch them try to decide whether to correct me. (They never do.)