Southern Mechanics and Their Misuse of The Word “Today.”

The word “Today” typically means some time during the course of sunrise to sunset of a given day. For instance, if you called me on Monday afternoon and I said, “Today I will get you an estimate on how long it will take to fix your bus.” Then you can expect to have a prepared estimate to review by Monday evening. Of course, sometimes “Today” refers to a 24-hour swath of time spanning two separate days. And in that instance, the aforementioned estimate might not be ready until Tuesday afternoon. Unless I was using “Today” in a rarer, but still acceptable usage, which refers to any amount of time between now and tomorrow evening. In that case, you’d have a precise and thorough estimate—including an itemized spreadsheet with prices and part numbers—in your possession by Tuesday evening. Unfortunately for us, “Today” does not mean any of these things. In fact, when uttered by a mechanic in the south, “Today” has no meaning whatsoever. Sure, it sounds like a word with meaning. And it’s formed by forcing air out the mouth and over the tongue in precisely the same manner someone would use to form a word that contains meaning, but in fact, this version of the word “Today” is more like the sounds “Uh.” Or “Huh.”

Sure, it seems incredibly inefficient to have a polysyllabic word that carries no meaning at all. And at first I assumed that “today” might be some type of shorthand. An abbreviation that means “next week” or “whenever the fancy strikes me.” But over the course of two weeks I observed that both of those meanings are also incorrect.

So, now that “Today” is over and our bus is back in one piece, with new cylinder heads, new valves, new spark plugs, new fuel lines, new oil filters, new canvas pop-top, and a new appreciation for companies that maintain a sense of urgency—we are ready to start living on the road.