Saturday, I went walking on the old towpath near State Park.
At one point, two guys in a Beamer passed me. This is mainly a walking trail, not a vehicle road, so I figured there were three options: 1. Drugs. 2. Sex. 3. Lost.
As it turned out, it was #3, which I discovered when they turned around and the driver rolled down his window to say, "Excuse me, ma'am, but we're on our way to a corporate bean-bag event at State Park. Do you know the best way to get there?"
Okay, first off, corporate bean-bag event? Like, as in, bean-bag toss?
Dude certainly LOOKED the corporate type: Clean-shaven, well-dressed, driving a Beamer. But ... bean bag?
Trying not to laugh, I gave him directions to the park entrance. What the hell is a corporate bean-bag event? When I walked back through the park, later in the day, I briefly thought about trying to locate said event, but decided that the reality could never be as entertaining as the picture I had in my mind, so I gave it a pass.
And you know, I find myself getting "ma'am"ed an awful lot lately. And I got a bunch of it on Saturday, first from the cable guy (who looked disturbingly like a young, fit Russell Crowe *cough*), then from the Beamer dude, and still more later on when I went shopping.
When do we go from Miss to Ma'am, do you think? Is there an age cutoff? I'd rather be a Miss than a Ma'am, although I can't quite put my finger on why. Is it because Ma'am means old and Miss means young?
While I spend zero time wishing I was young again, I do kind of miss Miss. Go figure.
7 comments:
Oh, you've got a shock coming. There will come a day when they stop asking if you qualify for the senior discount, and just give it to you.
I think the retailers around here have figured out the ma'am/miss thing--they call all women miss. I've gotten ma'amed forever, but not anymore around here. Ma'am is just nasty-sounding. It used to mean someone who was married but it's taken on such a demeaning tone, like "I don't know your name and I don't care," but miss somehow seems more polite. It's weird.
I think the exact opposite of D. Kate. In my mind, "Ma'am" has weight, dignity, and respect, whereas "Miss" is dismissive and lower in stature.
Illustration: Imagine a fatass businessman sitting at a table in a fancy restaurant, arm up, snapping fingers for attention. Is he calling, "Ma'am, ma'am!" or "Miss, miss!"
If any clerks called me "Miss", I'd draw myself up, give them a withering look down my nose, and say, "I beg your pardon! I am not a Miss. I am a Ma'am."
(Fifty points if you can name the book that recalls.)
I hit "ma'am" right around 35. And honestly, I don't mind "ma'am" -- but I dislike Miss. I am not a "miss", or, worse "young lady".
Yeesh.
:-)
Pearl
~~Silk, bring on the senior discounts! And you've stumped me on the book reference.
To me, "Ma'am" just sounds so ... formal. "Miss" sounds friendlier, somehow. Although I'm not terribly fond of either, I guess they beat "Hey, you".
It wasn't so much a book as the screenplay. Hint: "I am not an animal! I am a human being! I... am... a man!"
I guess I'm more sensitive to women being infantalized, because I'm older, and have lived through a period when men were men and women were girls. In his early 90s my late father-in-law referred to women his own age as "the girls", and it perfectly described his opinion of their opinions, too.
Oh ... The Elephant Man!
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