Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"

[Nevermore]

Not me, but two guys at work. To lay the scene, I work in an industrial environment, huge building, and we always have contractors coming in to install equipment--in this case it was yet another addition to already ginormous internal communications, about six months or so after Brokeback Mountain was released.  These three fellows were working in a team, two in a lift truck running fiber optics and the other on the ground with a handheld computer.
They were there for a few weeks and we got to know them pretty well, and at some point found out the engineer and one of the electricians were old, good friends. On this particular day, one of the team of three was missing and the engineer(Jeff) was in a lift, working with his buddy, the electrician (Matt), and it was obvious that Jeff, though brainy, was no mechanic, fumbling around with the tools.
They were assembling a major junction, a complicated fitting full of tiny wires into tiny holes on several circuit boards, secured by tiny screws with a tiny screwdriver, twenty feet in the air and keeping in contact with radios, on a channel shared by some of the in-house maintenance crew.
It was getting late and Matt's patience was wearing thin--Jeff had dropped tools, screws, etc. several times,watched all the while by the mechanics from their stand-by area. They were at the connection testing phase, and we could clearly hear the dialogue that passed between them:
[exchange consisting of  recital and confirmation of various connections, voltages, lights coming on]

Jim: "Echo-three-one-one."
Matt: "Echo-three-one-one, negative."
J:"What do you mean, negative?"
M: "I mean, zero volts. No lights, nothing."
J: "OK, a green LED should come on on the CCP board, top right..."
M: "Dude, I know where the light is at, I got no volts."
J: "Lemme check the connection."
M (sounding a bit peeved) "Yeah, why don't you do that."
J (can be seen fumbling with his tool belt): "Ah, I see what--I got a bent pin here--"
M (Talking on top of Jeff) "Well don't break the fucker--"
J: "Hold on, lemme get it--you know, I could sure use a small needle nose--"
M:"Don't force it, man."
J: "Or maybe a pair of tweezers...See if I can just...Ah, shit! Shit!"
(the mechanics see Jeff look over the side of the lift down at a series of conveyor belts)
M: "Tell me you didn't break it. You broke it."
J: "I uh, dropped the screwdriver down in that, uh,  machine down there."
M: (a short silence, followed by a sigh):" I wish I knew how to quit you, Jeff."

[Katie77]

What a funny story Nevermore and your description of the scene very funny.....

[Artiste]

May I say that I am glad that you continue this thread.


We all need sense of humour, even in dire times.

WE are  still sad, and this thread helps to be happy again.

Continue to candle Brokieisms.. it sure lights up miy life and others,

hugs, hugs, hugs!!!

[pnwDUDE]

Nevermore, great story. Reminds me of one.

There are a group of guys outta my precinct, the fraternal order of GANG cops, we call em'. Yeah, a tight-knight bunch of guys (1 lesbo cutie who is one of em) age 25-35 (GANG assignment for them youngin's). They all like the mirror and, like the SWAT guys, spend lots of time in the gym. Nice guys. Not the hyper macho stereotype ya'll are probably thinking (some of you rollin' eyes, I know  )  I always thought some of these guys were a bit too close. At times, flirtin' and grab-assing with each other. Boys will be boys. Now because Brokeback got me good, I started paying attention to things. These guys know about me, and a few of em' seem to be friendlier--not trying to put the make on or anything like thay. They are all married. But they just seemed a bit different. Could be that I was different. More open. Happier. BBM allowed me to quietly break through. So I start noticing when these guys are working out, they started playing country western music. One day when I was walking past their cubicles (they were sitting and didn't know who was passing by on the other side of the cube, I heard one of the guys pull his radio out of the charger, and, Jack-like to his partner, "time ta' git' goin', cowboy". Shit, I welled up a bit in the chest and a huge smile crossed my face.  Not claiming any one of em' is homo (well, I do think two of em' swing both ways with enough alcohol-another story entirely).

I took every Friday off early, after BBM was out for about a month, and caught the late showing until it was pulled from the theaters. Initailly, now and then I noticed groups of young guys (not gay looking, acting--it seemed those guys saw it once when if first came out and that was enough--not enough sex, I guess) , looking uncomfortable and uncertain kinda sneeking in after the lights were down and planting themselves far away from everyone else. They were usually yuckin' it up a bit, but after the FNIT I noticed these little groups would be quietly glued to the rest of the story. I can see these guys I work with doing just that. These guys got together, snuck off, and saw Brokeback Mountain!

Yeah, BBM probably isn't too much on their minds like it was, but at work, the Country Western music stuck.

Brad

[forsythia12]

okay.  i bought some 'rinse free' floor cleaner to mop my kitchen floor today.  so i'm mopping away, and when i was done, i emptied the bucket and put away the mop.  my hubby asks "aren't you going to rinse it?" and i said:

"no, it's rinse free ......this is a one shot deal we got going on here."

[Katie77]

okay.  i bought some 'rinse free' floor cleaner to mop my kitchen floor today.  so i'm mopping away, and when i was done, i emptied the bucket and put away the mop.  my hubby asks "aren't you going to rinse it?" and i said:

"no, it's rinse free ......this is a one shot deal we got going on here."

 

Your brokeisms make me laugh forsythia..............(how good it is to laugh again)

[forsythia12]

well thanks katie.  i'm wishing we had a "knife and fork" restaruant in my town, 'cause i'm absolutely dying to use that line.
lol

[Ellemeno]

well thanks katie.  i'm wishing we had a "knife and fork" restaruant in my town, 'cause i'm absolutely dying to use that line.
lol

Oh, I wouldn't let realism stop me from using it. 

I like your stories too.

[forsythia12]

okay ellmeno.  i said to my husband "maybe we should go to the knife and fork tonight.....get a sitter?"
and he's like "what the f**ck is the knife and fork?"   lol


and then today , when i made my kids clean their room i said "you pair a dueces lookin' for work i suggest you get your scrawny asses in here pronto"   

[Nevermore]

Haw!  Crow,I loved how you laid this all out, you wouldnt be a screenwriter by anychance <wink>. I am going to rip this off borrow this in a story sometime. No made-up dialogue is ever as good as the real thing.

Those other mechanics have any idea what Matt was referring to?

In answer to your questions and points (and Brad's, below)-- Yes, I have tried my hand at screen and playwriting, as you well know.  A fine Irish playwright, Billy Roche (Google), who I was lucky to meet a couple of times, acknowledged that he, like me, was an incorrigible eavesdropper--got some of his best dialogue this way, and a few times had been tempted to offer money for a really prize exchange.  Blue-collar  sorts, particularly veterans, are excellent sources of material.  Many a time have I joked that "I'm writing a novel about thi place--all of you are in it," and they thought I was kidding...
Yes, most of the mechanics listening in on the maintenance channel knew what Matt was referring to. John Gibson's commentary on Heath Ledger's death would not have made sense if that line, "I wish I knew how to quit you!" had not been a pop culture phenomenon.
There's a Landmark theater up here, the Neptune Theater near the University of Washington, that has a  schtick of putting catchy film quotes on its old-fashioned marquee--when Brokeback was first released in mid-December of '05, they had "I wish I knew how to quit you" up there for weeks, even though the film was actually playing several miles away on Capitol Hill (yeah, the gay part of town). It just had that buzz, like "what we have here is failure to communicate."
It had crossover potential, so, as Brad describes so deliciously,even straight guys who would never watch Adam and Steve, even on HBO at 4 AM, were curious enough that they had to know what all the fuss was about, even if it meant sneaking in after the trailers were over.