Here's an example.. "May shat but n rot chair." Yep. I honestly heard that. Was half-way watching some cowboy TV show and BOOM. There it was. I whipped my head around to Big Red and asked "What'd he just say?" To this, Big Red replied "hunh?" Fat lotta good that did me, so I dug through the sofa for the remote and rewound the program. Again..."May shat but n rot chair." No one else seemed to care much, but I was completely perplexed. I grabbed some paper and began trying to write it out phonetically. After a few minutes I figured out it was just one guy telling another to press a button. Or, in other words, to mash that button right there. Who knew? I'm still a little confused on why a cowboy on horseback would be talking about pressing a button and a rotten chair, but who am I to question.
Another good one was "barria wilabar." Say what? I wasn't even sure where to start on that one. I let it simmer in my head for a few days, but got no where. I finally caved and called in the big guns. A friend from mid-Oklahoma. Surely she would know. We talked some and I finally asked if she knew what the phrase meant. She stared at me like I was an idiot and told me "they just want to borrow your wheelbarrow. I don't know what the big deal is." WHAT? Oh, ok. That clears it up. Barria wilabar = May I borrow your wheelbarrow. Now I know.
"Mepya" is an easy and very common one. May I help you. Always makes me snicker when I hear it. The best one I can think of, though, happened to a friend from Colorado. He was at a fast food place in Texas named Whataburger. (Fantastic burgers, by the way!) Placing his order through the drive through for the #1 combo - burger, fries and a drink - a lady comes on the speaker and yells "ya wah wah-sy dat?" The look on his face was priceless. It was almost like he wanted to make sure some else had heard it and not just him. He looked around a bit, then timidly replied "What?" Again he heard "YA WAH WAH-SY DAT?" Poor guy just rolled his eyes around and finally said "Um, I don't know what you just said. I don't know what that means." By now the rest of us were starting to laugh. Yes! we yelled. Just tell her yes! He had no idea what he was in for, but agreed just to be done with it. In the end, she was just asking if he wanted to "Whata-size" his meal. You wanna Whatasize that? Well hell yes, of course! Everything must be bigger in Texas, right?