Meanwhile, I'm learning more and more about the North Dakota Child's interests--namely that all boys obsess over hockey (PeeWee, UND Sioux, and NHL, in that order), all girls favor heavily sequined shirts and pompom-ed or animal ear-ed hats, and that both genders enjoy a good laugh at Miss Robertson's accent. People here have that tendency toward the vowel sounds unique to Wisconsin and Minnesota. As a result, the local specialty, Taco in a Bag (alias The Walking Taco, or taco meat and toppings served over a bed of crushed Doritos) is pronounced Taco in a Bayg. Additionally, my pronunciation of the e in Caleb and the a in Maggie is apparently so egregious that students with those names don't even respond when I call on them in class.
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| The website I took this tasty-looking picture from posed the question, Where else besides Ohio can you get taco in a bag? The answer: Anywhere in Grand Forks, including--but not limited to-- the mall, school cafeterias, and at informal dinner parties. |
Despite my faulty pronunciation, students still mostly seem to like me, as evidenced by the fact that my hug-to-handshake ratio as students leave at the of the day is approximately 3:1 (I require one or the other). As further evidence of these students' esteem, I present Exhibit B: a caricature that some third-graders and I made in class one afternoon. I've entitled it "Miss Robertson with a Tan and a Bow in Her Hair." If you look closely, you can see that it is signed by the artists. Enjoy:
