I am not Canadian - not that there is anything wrong with that

I have this thing, I don’t know what to call it, rarely is it a problem, usually it just makes me feel like a jerk and hope that others didn’t notice it. I mimic people. Not in a mean way, I just automatically match my speech pattern to theirs or start saying certain words with their accent. The accent thing only happens with English-Speaking accents. I have never – that I know of – begun mimicking a foreign language accent. I really hope I have never done that.

For example, there is a woman in Canada who absolutely refuses to believe that I was not born and raised in Ontario because apparently I left her a voicemail in which I “sounded Canadian.” Despite telling her many times that I have never even been to Canada and rarely speak to Canadians she doesn’t believe me. I know what happened, upon listening to her outgoing message I immediately used the same patterns and words and inflections that she did. After leaving the message I knew I had done it, I just didn’t think it would turn into a 15 minute conversation about how I wasn’t Canadian.

So like I said, this is rarely an actual problem. It does become a problem when I do something like watch two seasons of The Wire in under a week. Let’s just say that my language has gone down hill in the last couple of days. I’m trying to control it, but sometimes it slips out. For those of you who have to speak to me in the upcoming days, I apologize in advance for my language but remember one thing, no matter what you hear, it was worse in my head.