Hey, boss

If you hang out with Jill and me for an extended period of time (YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY!), you will likely hear one of the following phrases:

"Fiyuh."
"Indeed, top hat."
"I'm so omnommy."
"TIG!"
"Oh no, tubes!"
"MAH GOATS!"

These are a few of our own personal idioms. They succinctly express things like: "What I just said was kind of pointless, and a little bit passive aggressive, but let's not let things get tense." Or: "Aren't my sudden moments of insecurity awkward and hilarious?" And sometimes: "Holy crap, this conversation has gotten so stupid that we might as well be hillbillies sitting barefoot in a mud puddle, picking our teeth with straw, talking about all the different types of meat we like to eat." I can usually remember how each particular phrase/made-up word came to mean what it now means, but they've become so ingrained in our daily lexicon that they're less about the story that became the phrase and more about our shared history and emotional understanding.

Here's how a phrase or word becomes an inside idiom. Last week, I was telling Jill about this youtube video of a woman throwing her neighbor's cat in the garbage. Some self-ordained internet posse took it upon themselves to track this woman down and harass her for her heinous crime against humanity. Well, against cats. Catmanity. I was telling Jill the things they did to her, like post her real address and phone number online, spam her email accounts, and call her boss. Jill stopped me here and demanded explanation, "They called her boss?" I confirmed it. She got a weird look on her face, but let me continue with the story. She said internet people were weird, but admitted, "I guess that would get annoying. A bunch of people calling you "boss" over and over again." I clarified that they called her employer, but we were already laughing at the misunderstanding. Laughing quite uproariously, while acting out the bully tactic of calling someone "boss."

And thus "Hey, boss" (said in a menacing, taunting tone) was born. It's also appropriately used in im-chat as "BOSS" at the end of a sentence. It means: "I'm teasing you, but in a light-hearted silly way."