Accents

So last Friday I was chatting on the phone with Sven and Pete. (Do you like how casually I threw in a reference to an international call as if I do that all the time?) Sven or Pete (sad to say when they are both on the line, I lose track of who is who sometimes) said it was nice that I didn't do the "typical North American thing" and squeal about how cool their accents were.
What Sven and Pete don't realize is that I live in California. The nucleus of the melting pot. Do you know how many accents I hear in an average week? And I'm not talking just people of another nationality or American regional accents, I'm talking about recent immigrants with an accent.

In my own apartment complex, there my Adorable Jordanian Neighbors, and the tiny asian woman, who's 258 year old boyfriend can barely make it up the steps to see her.

At work*, just off the top of my head, I can think of the English guy in QC, the Russian gal in Sales, the Nigerian man in the RMA dept., the Ukranian man in sales, the girl from Ecuador in order processing, the Chinese man in something technical, he tried to explain it to me and I didn't understand, the Italian woman in production, the Philipino guy in recieving, the Mexican guy and gal in production, the Mexican woman in engineering, the Thai woman in SE, and the cleaning lady who doesn't even speak english, only spanish.
That's not even counting all the accents I hear over the phone. People call to order from all over the world.

*These people have names, of course, but I don't think I should post them.

There is is the Korean woman who does my nails, the Italian couple who run my favorite resturant, the Mexican guy at the mexican food place on the corner, the Caldenean man at the liquor store and so on and so forth.

So Sven and Pete, you do have lovely accents, (a bit sexy, really). But I'm a sophisticated woman of the world. So of course, like any sophisticated person would do, I waited until after we were off the phone to grin and squeal, "Ohmygosh, they sound so british!!!"