My wife and I have a favorite Thai restaurant in Austin. It’s not the best Thai restaurant in our experience. We’ve dined at much better ones in Washington, D.C., and Yorktown, Virginia. The best one, in our book, is in Arlington, Virginia.
At any rate, our favorite Thai restaurant in Austin is very good and accordingly popular. And because Thai food is relatively inexpensive, it draws a lot of twenty-and-thirty-somethings.
Thus the air was filled (as usual) with “like”, “like”, “like”, “like”, and more “like”, ad nauseum. It makes me want to stand up and shout “Shut up, I can’t take it any more”.
The fellow at the next table not only used “like” in every sentence, but had a raspy, penetrating vocal fry, which is another irritating speech pattern of millennials. He was seated so that he was facing in my direction. As a result, I had to turn down my hearing aids to soften the creak that ended his every sentence.
His date (a female, which is noteworthy in Austin) merely giggled at everything he said. It must have been a getting-to-know you date. The relationship is doomed if she’s at all fussy about “like”. Though it may be that he doesn’t like giggly gals.
Harumph!
That’s today’s gripe. For more gripes, see these posts:
Stuff White (Liberal Yuppie) People Like
Driving and Politics
I’ve Got a LIttle List
Driving and Politics (2)
Amazon and Austin
Driving Is an IQ Test
The Renaming Mania Hits a New Low
Let the Punishment Deter the Crime
Politics and Prosperity 
A Superannuated Gent ‘Howls’
—
I’ve gotta get it off my chest. Things are going to hell in a hand-basket.
Popular entertainments do not inspire.
There is no rigor in what used to be an intellectual argument.
Robots have replaced honest labor so people fiddle with their computers.
Elected leaders cannot lead, so young people join local and international mobs.
Feelings are now more important than thoughts, so everyone is upset with everyone else.
Local traditions fall away in the face of mass marketing.
International organizations are more powerful than nations.
Religions fail to inspire the transcendent in the people, so they seek prophets of the mundane and violent.
It becomes ever more difficult to find sufficient water for the people.
Our food is manufactured.
We are fouling our own nest.
And this Howl is all I can generate for a scheduled submission to my writing group.
—
wp.me/p30kzv-1u9
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s an interesting link about vocal fry. Thanks!
LikeLike