We Tried the Literalization Diet

“Holy cow” doesn’t actually mean “a holy cow.” It’s a figure of speech (this one with cultural/religious roots) that we use colloquially to show excitement or wonder, to replace “wow.”

But what if “holy cow” really did mean that I saw a holy cow? What if calling someone “a real crab” meant that Leandra was an actual crustacean because she didn’t have her morning iced coffee? As members of the generation that uses “literally” to excess, Leandra the Lobster and I decided to find out.

Enter: the Literalization Diet, where no verbiage is safe and no hyperbolism goes unnoticed. If you say, “I’m going to barf,” then baby, you better barf.

Amelia:

According to the office who has clearly been conspiring and talking a lot of shit behind my back, here are the things I say the most:

– I’m gonna fucking kill someone.

– Hold on a sec.

– I’m dying.

– I’m going to pee my pants.

– Hanging out (as in, “X and I are hanging out later.”)

The first one was ruled out completely for obvious reasons.

“Hold on a sec” was easy. Someone would ask me a question, I’d say hold on a sec, and then whomever I said that to was forced to freeze-mid sentence for a second. It was sort of like being in a Bruno Mars music video.

“I’m dying” was less dramatic than one would think. Here’s what I’d do: say, “I’m dying!” And then go take a nap. Napping, if you’re quiet about it, can look a lot like dying, or so my mom once told me when I gave her a “heart attack” because I wouldn’t wake up from a 4 p.m. snooze. Being a teenager really takes it out of you, you know?

I almost announced “I’m going to pee my pants” multiple times throughout the day because it’s a verbal habit that haunts my personal lexicon. I kept the thought to myself, however, and took the route of more established humans: upon feeling the need to pee, I got up and, you know, pardoned myself to the loo, or whatever.

“Hanging out” was thrilling if not slightly dangerous, although I’ve been told that’s what it’s like being my friend in general. Anyway, when I asked Leandra to “hang out after work,” it meant that she and I had to hang from windowsills and just chit chat that way. It was fun for about two minutes and then our hands cramped and I almost literally did die.

Leandra:

It all started two weeks ago when I walked over to Man Repeller’s digital director and linked arms with her. She was seated at her computer with some graphs and pie charts pulled up on her monitor and could not, for the life of a tweet, understand why I had intertwined my arm with hers. It was because just the day before I told her we would reconnect at some point the following day! And I wanted to be literal! I thought it would be fun!

Cut to the following week when I bequeathed to Amelia and myself the world’s best new Diet idea: the hyper-literalization diet. So now you know we’ve spent the majority of today assuming all of our axioms as literal expressions and here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Jumping on a call is really good cardio. It makes communication with the other end of the phone call vaguely difficult but you can still make out most words and miscommunication is just a drop in the bucket when you’re at a cardio cavalcade.

Circling back with people can be quite dizzying. I told Esther we’d circle back on her next slew of “picks” and when we were going through the potential items to highlight I got real dizzy.

Another one that’s been weird to execute was related to my frequently calling poor solutions our “putting a Band-Aid on a wound that needs stitches.” I tried really hard not to say it today but in trying to prepare the creative assets for the morning’s post and failing miserably thus experiencing the gaping hole that is a Charlotte deficiency, I took to a needle and thread and began stitching the napkin in front of me because I was too afraid to weave thread through my skin.

The most difficult expression to literalize was definitely, “I’m going to stab myself in the heart,” which it appears I say about once every thirty minutes. I have poked, like, three holes into my stupid striped Saint James shirt today and ink-stained it because of the amount of times I have been forced to jab pens into the left side of my chest. One time I said I would stab myself in the eye but I have to draw the line somewhere, you know?

Conclusion: It is a blessing to live in a world that supports the tenets of hyperbole. Can you imagine if every time you said you’d fallen down a rabbit hole, an ambulance showed up at your doorstep?