Daily Story 115: The Life and Times of Onion Boy

Omegle conversation log 2009-08-10
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A word of advice: "asl" is boring. Please find something more interesting to talk about!

Stranger: hi

You: Hello there!
You: I just wanted you to know that, personally, I'm not a big fan of onions.
You: I think it's the texture; the crunchiness.

Stranger: ok

You: I'm glad you approve.
You: That being said, however, I DO have a whole truckload of onions I'm scheduled to eat tonight.
You: It's for a contest.
You: I have to eat forty pounds of onions, in a single day.
You: The first prize is forty more pounds of onions.
You: Which I suppose doesn't sound like a good prize.
You: But you have to do what you can in this economy.

Stranger: oh

You: Yeah.

Stranger: where are you from

You: Originally I'm not sure; I was found on the doorstep of a houseboat. Abandoned by my parents.
You: After that we moved a lot.
You: See, the houseboat's rudder was broken.
You: So we just drifted.
You: We went all down the east coast of the Americas.
You: And then around the bottom, where we stopped briefly to pet some penguins.
You: By the time I was a teenager we had made it back up the other side.
You: I swam to shore one day after a fight.
You: And that evening the houseboat drifted off to the open ocean.
You: I never saw my adopted parents again.

Stranger: you are very outgoing

You: Well, I have to be. I work in the entertainment industry.
You: The circus, to be specific.
You: I used to perform, but they got angry because that wasn't technically my job.
You: I would just run out into the center ring and start to dance.
You: So now they have me in the back.
You: Washing out the elephant cages.
You: But you have to be outgoing, to get noticed.
You: And to get an act of your own.
You: Also it helps to know how to juggle things that are on fire.
You: And they don't pay me much to do the elephant cages, which is why I have to win that onion contest.
You: Someday I'll get back out there, maybe juggling onions or flaming swords or something.
You: Or just dancing some more, though nobody seemed to like that much.

Stranger: are you American?

You: I am. I mean, I suppose that I am. I don't have a valid birth certificate but I was almost certainly born in America.
You: Or at least in American waters.
You: And I live on the road now, but exclusively in America.
You: They won't let our circus into Canada anymore, ever after the incident.
You: It involved an escaped bear.
You: He rode all over Toronto on his unicycle, biting tourists.

Stranger: do you know chinese?

You: I don't, no. I wouldn't mind learning but it seems really hard.
You: I mean, English is a TERRIBLE language but it's easy because I've always spoken it.
You: That, and pig-latin.
You: Though I picked up pig-latin really quickly, so I must have an ear for languages.
You: So I guess I should try Chineese.
You: There's more than one dialect, right?
You: I hear Mandarin is the most common.
You: I guess I would go for that.
You: My Aunt visited us on the house boat once, she spoke Chinese.
You: I wish I had understood her.
You: She told people how they would die, but of course I have no idea what she said to me.
You: She was always right, you know.
You: Even about herself.
You: She said she would die from falling off of a building in a rainstorm.
You: As it turned out the building in question was sucked up by a tornado.

Stranger: .................

You: And then she fell off.

Stranger: in fact,i can't speak English very well

You: Oh, I hope I'm not confusing you too much.
You: I hear I can be quite confusing.
You: Though I guess that it's good I'm typing rather than talking.
You: Because my mouth is full of onions.
You: So I would be especially hard to understand right now.

Stranger: how do you like china?

You: I don't know a lot about it, actually.
You: I mean, I know that it's huge and has a lot of people.
You: And I know that it's increasingly important in the global economy.
You: And I've heard some bad things about cencorship there.
You: But that's a lot of places.
You: And I thing they might have faked some birth certificates to get people into the Olympics.
You: But I don't know, and it doesn't really bother me that much.
You: Certainly I would make a fake birth certificate if I could use it to get an act in the circus.
You: Because these elephants suck.