Pee Pee or Tee Tee? That is the Question! Post #49

         Until moving to Mobile I thought I knew how all southerners talk; and that would be like my Kentucky family.  But every so often, I would see a movie where a southern accent is portrayed and would comment, “That accent is so fake!”  And I really believed that until I moved to Mobile, a sibling city to New Orleans, Gulfport/Biloxi, and Pensacola. 

Probably the most unexpected thing about moving from the great white north to the Deep South - particularly the Gulf Coast - is the various dialects of southern accents.  Both my mom and dad’s families were southern and at family reunions, we  were the ones who had the accent, though I learned to talk in Maryland by parents who still had southern accents.   So all my life, no matter where I went, people told me I had an accent.  Or at the very least, “You talk funny!” 

               

In this sisterhood of cities, there is a blend of French, Spanish, Creole, Laotian, cultures, with a side of Vietnamese and/or British.   Simple phrases are said in many different ways and it took a while to realize that each southern accent was just as legitimate the next.   But sometimes I assumed something was a cultural phrase or word when in reality, it was unique to an individual or family.  For instance, when my oldest daughter was a baby, she called Ice cream ‘Hawseyke’ (halls-ike).  Don’t ask me why, she just did!   Therefore, that became our family's word for ice cream until nearly the time she went off to college.  And that is how it was with my sweet friend, Laura.  She had two kids who were about ten and twelve years old when I moved here.

              

  I remember the first time I heard Laura ask her kids if they needed to go ‘Tee Tee’.“Tee Tee?”   I thought.  “Well, that’s a new one!  That must be her kid name for Pee, or Pee Pee.”  Many times in the north I been in public and heard a kid or an adult – even a classy-looking woman -  crassly announce, “I gotta Pee!”  I have to admit, Tee Tee was much more subtle and maybe even a little cuter sounding than PEE.  But one day, Laura and I were out by ourselves when she suggested we stop and get a drink and go Tee Tee.  I thought she was kidding at first but when I looked at her sweet, innocent, adorable face it was obvious she was completely serious.  “I don’t go ‘Tee Tee’! “  I thought.  It sounded so childish and I wondered what she would have thought if I had said, “Why don’t we stop for Hawseyke instead?”  But I got it.  Her kids were still young and the more I thought about it, it really was just so much 'softer' sounding than PEE.  

                Eventually I became accustomed to Laura’s word for Pee and accepted the fact that she not only uses it for her kids, but for herself, and even me.   It was a sunny, warm, fall day when I went to the doctors for the first time in Mobile.  During the triage, they take your blood pressure and weight.   The nurse chatted happily, as most Mobilians do, as she put the pressure belt on my arm and continued her banter throughout the process.  Then she handed me a cup and said, “Now Miss. Mary Beth, we need you to Tee Tee in this cup!”   She look at me questioningly as I stared at her with my mouth hanging open as though I had no clue of what I was supposed to do.  And to be honest, if it was not for 'Laura Quite Contraura,' I wouldn’t have.  But I was frozen with my eyes locked on hers and the only thought I could seem to muster up was, “Now I know she just didn’t say Tee Tee!”  Then I walked into the bathroom, still in a daze and starring at the cup thinking, “I have to Tee Tee in this!  I, Mary Beth, am going Tee Tee!”   I had never gone ‘Tee Tee’ before  and I  laughed  hysterically the whole time.  From there it was time to pick Shanon up from school and she looked at me like I was from Mars when I said, “Guess what, Sweetheart?  I went Tee Tee today.”

I’ve heard Tee Tee said many times since then.  As a matter of fact, the only Pee, or Pee Pee people are Yankees, mid-westerners, or West Coast transplants.  This past fall, I landed in the cardiac unit for nearly 4 days .   You’d think the primary thought in my mind would be the issue at hand – which was a health snafu.  But once again, I found myself amused at the southern terminology used even in the hospital.  For instance, when the sweet, tall, young and handsome night orderly came in my room in the middle of the night to do stats, each time he would say, "Miss. Mary Beth?  Do you want me to walk you into the bathroom to go Tee Tee?"    And over and over I told him, "No, thank you!  I don't need to go Tee Tee!"  The nurses instructed me about making sure to Tee Tee in the measuring cup and each day the doctors asked how many times I Tee Tee’d.

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  I still haven’t changed from Pee Pee to Tee Tee yet.  We are big tea drinkers at my house and somehow I still can’t separate the two.  Is Tee Tee actually Tea that we Pee?  'We don’t know!’   But somehow I have this strange feeling that, when the grand-babies come,  my Pee Pee days may very well be over.