Years of reading anything I could get my hands on and writing every chance I got has made me realize that words are weird. If you say or stare at any word long enough, it looks strange. Case in point: my buffalo moment.
This is actually a bit embarrassing, but I now feel I am at a place where I can talk about it.
Picture it: my living room, circa 2011. I was telecommuting, so I was in my pajamas, on my couch, listening to “Family Feud” in the background as Iedited diligently browsed the interwebs to delay actually working.
I have no idea what I was reading, but I came across the word buffalo. As ridiculous this is for anyone, much less an Okie, it stopped me in my tracks. I literally could not think of what the word meant. It just looked funny.
Buffalo, I thought. Buffalo… I know I should know what that means. Am I even saying it right? Perhaps it’s boo-falo. No, sounds too pretentious. Is that really the way it’s spelled? Maybe it’s misspelled and that’s what’s tripping me up. No, I think it’s right. What the crap does it mean?
Try as I might, I could not find the definition for buffalo anywhere in among all the info floating around in my head. But by golly, I could come up with the number one answer for the question “Name something a cowboy wears.” A cowboy hat, of course. (Unless we’re talking Dallas Cowboys, in which case it would be a badge of shame.)
But buffalo still perplexed me.
By this point I was really bothered. I knew this was a word anyone else would be able to readily identify. So why was its definition escaping me, a college-educated editor who read and wrote for a living?
I continued to stare at the word on the screen, analyze its spelling and pronunciation, and agonize over why I didn’t know this word anymore. (I suppose it’s necessary to mention that at no point did Googling “buffalo” ever occur to me. Maybe I was just having an off day in general.)
But finally, after a full minute at least, the light bulb went off. Buffalo, Oklahoma’s state animal, I remembered. The big, furry brown lump of an animal! Oh glory hallelujah, I’m not a complete idiot!
I felt so accomplished for finally having remembered what a buffalo was that I momentarily tricked myself into believing I was a genius for having figured it out, as though I had found and named the first ever buffalo.
When I came to my senses and remembered that four-year-olds know what buffalo are, I just felt dumb.
Since then, I’ve dubbed my face-palms/head-scratchers my “buffalo moments.” You know, the few seconds your mind goes completely blank and you can’t for the life of you remember your zip code or what you ate for lunch an hour ago or what side of the car your gas tank is on. [I experienced that particular buffalo moment last weekend and circled 7-11 twice before finally parking out front, deciding it would seem strange for me to get out and look around the car, and eventually just leaving, red faced as though everyone at 7-11 knew what had just transpired in my head.]
So is it just me, or do others experience their own buffalo moments embarrassingly often?
This is actually a bit embarrassing, but I now feel I am at a place where I can talk about it.
Picture it: my living room, circa 2011. I was telecommuting, so I was in my pajamas, on my couch, listening to “Family Feud” in the background as I
I have no idea what I was reading, but I came across the word buffalo. As ridiculous this is for anyone, much less an Okie, it stopped me in my tracks. I literally could not think of what the word meant. It just looked funny.
Buffalo, I thought. Buffalo… I know I should know what that means. Am I even saying it right? Perhaps it’s boo-falo. No, sounds too pretentious. Is that really the way it’s spelled? Maybe it’s misspelled and that’s what’s tripping me up. No, I think it’s right. What the crap does it mean?
Try as I might, I could not find the definition for buffalo anywhere in among all the info floating around in my head. But by golly, I could come up with the number one answer for the question “Name something a cowboy wears.” A cowboy hat, of course. (Unless we’re talking Dallas Cowboys, in which case it would be a badge of shame.)
But buffalo still perplexed me.
By this point I was really bothered. I knew this was a word anyone else would be able to readily identify. So why was its definition escaping me, a college-educated editor who read and wrote for a living?
I continued to stare at the word on the screen, analyze its spelling and pronunciation, and agonize over why I didn’t know this word anymore. (I suppose it’s necessary to mention that at no point did Googling “buffalo” ever occur to me. Maybe I was just having an off day in general.)
But finally, after a full minute at least, the light bulb went off. Buffalo, Oklahoma’s state animal, I remembered. The big, furry brown lump of an animal! Oh glory hallelujah, I’m not a complete idiot!
I felt so accomplished for finally having remembered what a buffalo was that I momentarily tricked myself into believing I was a genius for having figured it out, as though I had found and named the first ever buffalo.
When I came to my senses and remembered that four-year-olds know what buffalo are, I just felt dumb.
Since then, I’ve dubbed my face-palms/head-scratchers my “buffalo moments.” You know, the few seconds your mind goes completely blank and you can’t for the life of you remember your zip code or what you ate for lunch an hour ago or what side of the car your gas tank is on. [I experienced that particular buffalo moment last weekend and circled 7-11 twice before finally parking out front, deciding it would seem strange for me to get out and look around the car, and eventually just leaving, red faced as though everyone at 7-11 knew what had just transpired in my head.]
So is it just me, or do others experience their own buffalo moments embarrassingly often?
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