Shortly after moving from the San Francisco Peninsula to Bloomington, Indiana, I needed to set up refills for some prescriptions.
I made an appointment with a local doctor’s office and was checking in with his assistant.[su_pullquote]August 2008[/su_pullquote] She was facing down, looking over my forms, asking me questions and filling in my info. It was difficult to understand her because of other noises in the area.
At one point it sounded like this:
“And your (mumble) dressed?”
To which I plucked at my shirt and exclaimed, “I sure hope so!”
The other clerk, who understood my distress, said in a slow clear voice, “She was asking you for your address.”
Clearly the mistake was mine – out West we say ADD-ress but here the accent is on the second syllable – uh-DRESS, which sounded to me as if she were asking, “And you are dressed?”☕️