Ooh girl, you da bomb!

Ok, so we've all got one. The coworker who is really genuinely nice and friendly and in all other ways awesome to work with and a pleasure to be around except for one thing...She tries to slip into her misguided middle-aged idea of "street" slang every time she sees our receptionist, who just so happens to be, you guessed it: black and the situation is embarrassing for all involved. Well, maybe not for me since I just sit in my office and laugh and laugh about it, but it's almost embarrassing to listen to. Almost.

Every morning when said coworker arrives, let's call her Turtle, she throws out an exceedingly loud, "Hey, girlfrieeeeeend!" to our receptionist. Just so you can recreate it for yourself, just pretend the "girlfriend" is from that one line in the oh so awesome song "Things That Make You Go Hmmm." While I'm on the topic, good Lord that song always annoyed me. And now it's stuck in my head. Fantastic. If the receptionist has changed her hair or is wearing a cute outfit, Turtle will undoubtedly reward us all with a, "You go, girl!" She even snaps her fingers a la Antoine Merriweather sometimes. "You go, girl"???????? Dude, even Ricki Lake stopped saying that shit in 1997. Time to move on to a new token "black" phrase. Hand to God, I once heard her tell Recep she needed to "ax" her something. I had to disguise my insanely loud laughter with a faux coughing fit to rival any sufferer of whooping cough.

Now, if this were the way that Turtle talked to everyone, cool. I'd totally still make fun of her for sounding like X-tina when she thought she was all hard and shit about 5 years ago (as a side note, I think Christina Aguilera fucking rocks and I love how she totally has her shit together now and has stopped wearing assless chaps to the grocery store and seems really happily married). But alas, Turtle talks like your typical middle-aged, extremely white bread suburban mom to everyone else. Everyone except for Receptionist. You know, 'cause Turtle is down. She knows black people.

I guess all I'm saying here is that I understand Turtle's attempts to relate to Receptionist. I actually like how personable Turtle is and I'm sure this is just her way of trying to be on Recep's level. Unfortunately she is getting all of her terminology from old reruns of Martin or something. And that's whack.