Silence is Golden

“No, you ask. You can get away with anything in this country.”

Fresh from a move to the Metro D.C. area from rural New England a few weeks ago, I was enjoying playing the tourist with my boyfriend, who came to visit and to help me settle into my new surroundings. Travelling with him was both wonderful and very humbling. The thing is, he’s British – we’re talking raised on tea and cricket, has never seen a Disney movie apart from Mary Poppins, can’t pronounce “schedule” British. And his accent is like magic Stateside. Even my mother wants him to record an audiobook for her. Servers in restaurants – both men and women – lingered at our table much longer than necessary, making inane conversation just to keep him talking. Girls would give him an extra big smile whenever he said, “Cheers!” instead of a boring old “Thank you.” Guides took an interest in us and were extra friendly. 

I quickly realized that this could work to our advantage. Whenever we wanted to know about student discounts or ask a touristy question, I sent Chris in first so that he could charm the socks of the woman at the ticket counter. It was great provided I kept my mouth shut to hide my own lacklustre American accent. As long as I let Chris do the talking, doors that I didn’t even know existed were opened to us.

With five minutes to go before the 1:30 tour of the U.S. Capitol began, we could not figure out for the life of us how to navigate the line dividers blocking us from the theatre where the tour started. There was simply no entrance. After triple-checking to make sure that we weren’t missing the obvious, I sent Chris to do his thing.

“Excuse me, but where do we get in the queue for the half-one tour? There doesn’t seem to be an entrance.”

The docent didn’t respond for several seconds, but just stared at Chris, eyebrows raised slightly. I began to worry that he was going to chide us for being complete idiots and point out the very clear entry mere feet from where we were standing. I glanced nervously at Chris.

But then: “Half-one! That’s the best anyone’s ever said that! Did you hear that?” He turned to the docent next to him, positively beaming. “You know what? That was so good that you can just get right into the front of this line here!”

A bit taken aback, we stepped to the front of the queue. The two docents fawned over Chris, asking him where he was from, how he liked the States, the usual. This was familiar territory. Then, one of them turned to me and eagerly asked the fatal question: “So, are you from England, too?”

Sigh. Curse you, inability to fake an accent. “No, I’m from Connecticut.”

Wait for it... A crestfallen, “Oh” was all that ever greeted this statement. Conversation killer extraordinaire. They both quickly lost interest and turned away, disappointed that I was just another American.

Yep. Cheers.