Yes I have an accent, may I take your order now?

[Willowe]

BG: I'm a waitress in a small restaurant (well... I am when I'm home during college breaks). I also have a unique accent for where I live, even though no one else in my family has this accent. I have no idea how I got it, but the most likely guesses are that it's a combination of my grandparents' accents or because I had ear infections as a child and didn't learn to speak properly at first.

I'm fairly used to getting comments about my accent. Most of the time it's a "So, where are you from?" sort of thing, and then the customer is always surprised when I tell them that I'm local and I'm not sure where the accent came from. I've heard every sort of possible guess for what it sounds like- just about every European country, Japanese, South African, Egyptian, French Canadian, Southern American, Australian, etc.

I've even had customers return with friends and demand that I say something, just so their friend will hear my accent because "It's so cool!" (Sorry, being ordered to speak like a trained dog diminishes that compliment.) Also the usual SCs who get huffy when they're the 9th table to ask me about it that day and I'm trying to take their order.

But these two customers were definitely the weirdest...

SC: Hey, I know we already ordered from someone else but can we take a look at the menu again?
Me: Sure, let me bring one out to you.

I grab a menu and return to see the two of them in deep conversation, and glancing over my way as I approach.

Me: (hand them the menu) There you go.
SC: Thanks. Hey listen, where are you from?
Me: Oh, I live in [the next town over]
SC: [town], England?
Me: No, just in the next town over.
SC: But you have an accent!
Me: Yeah. I'm not quite sure where it came from.
SC: But you sound British!
Me: A lot of people think so, but I've lived in the area my whole life.
SC: Are you in witness protection?
Me:
SC: Is that why you can't tell us where you're from? Because you're in witness protection?

I... what!? He was completely serious too! I don't know how "Telling you about my accent" suddenly translates to "Lying and in witness protection".

[thehuckster]

Geez, there's discussing personal stuff and then there's discussing personal stuff and then there's being a complete nitwit and discussing personal stuff. You should have responded with, "Yes, I am in witness protection. I witnessed a mob whacking and one of the mobsters has vowed to kill me and anyone who knows my story. I'd watch your back if I were you."

[Ghel]

"If that was the case, I couldn't tell you, could I?"

I wouldn't blame you if you turned into a compulsive liar every time someone asked you about your accent. "I was born in [town], but I was kidnapped at birth and raised by my kidnappers in [town], England. I was only reunited with my birth parents last week."

[Mytical]

<snip> "Yes, I am in witness protection. I witnessed a mob whacking and one of the mobsters has vowed to kill me and anyone who knows my story. I'd watch your back if I were you."

I love it. Absolutely brilliant. I will have to try to remember this if the occasion ever arises where somebody for some reason thinks I am in witness protection.

[Crossbow]

Nobody ever believes the truth, do they?

"Shhh! My handlers are watching. You don't want them to-" *look up quickly* "Crap! gotta go!"

[auntiem]

I have a weird accent too apparently. I was born on the East Coast and lived there until I was 3, moved to West Coast and raised by East Coast (different part than where I was born) speaking family. Aside from using the "wrong" words for some things I didn't know about it until I utterly failed my first phonetics test at college.
When I went to the professor to complain - she made me pronounce every sentance - and sure enough I had done the phonetic spelling correctly for my accent which she declared the weirdest she had ever heard (yea me).
I bet you could make some money volunteering for a grad student's study - just a thought.
For work, I would def. go with making up a different story for each person that asks: witness protection, escaping an arranged marriage, or "I have a particular set of skills..." and walk away.

[sms001]

"Are you in the witness protection program?"

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the answer to that is ALWAYS no. So pretty hard to get information from.

And now I must go watch the fabulous Christopher Walken segments of 'Joe Dirt.'

[vikingchyk]

SC: Thanks. Hey listen, where are you from?
Me: Oh, I live in [the next town over]
SC: [town], England?
Me: No, just in the next town over.
SC: But you have an accent!
Me: Yeah. I'm not quite sure where it came from.
SC: But you sound British!

I would get that a lot when I was kid, except, unlike OP, I don't have an accent. I have no idea why people think I did then, unless people were confused by me using proper grammar and enunciation at my age. There were a lot of people in my junior high school that thought I was from England, and I remember someone asking me what part of the UK I was from, when we were on vacation in Arizona. Umm, Chicago? To that point, I had lived in San Diego, very briefly in Virginia Beach (when I was 2) and Chicagoland.

Although I grew up near Chicago from ages 3 to 22, I don't have a Chicago accent (unless I try hard at it I can mimic some accents fairly well now (but usually a little too over-the-top) but not then, never when people would ask. Maybe my schoolmates just thought "not Chicago, not New York City, not from the South" equaled "British"?

It always puzzled me where my neutral accent came from, since all the adults in my life did have some sort of accent which I could hear, but I didn't talk like any of them. (Grandfather, Mom and aunt: San Diegan ; Dad: Nort' Dakotah; Grandmother: Bronx.) I would guess, since I watched a lot of TV, I picked up a mostly neutral patchwork from whatever I was watching.

[PepperElf]

one of my friends has an odd "accent". When I first met him I asked him where he was from, because it sounded interesting. turned out it was a lisp.

but - like with everyone - after I'd known him for a while, he didn't sound unusual. he just sounded like him.

[vikingchyk]

When I went to the professor to complain - she made me pronounce every sentance - and sure enough I had done the phonetic spelling correctly for my accent which she declared the weirdest she had ever heard (yea me).

Sounds like a badge of honor to me. Well, except for the failing part. Did she revise your grade, based on doing things correctly for your accent?

[AmbrosiaWriter]

I bet that guy was being paid by the mafia to talk to anyone with a weird accent in town to try and find the person in witness protection for them to take out.

[auntiem]

Sounds like a badge of honor to me. Well, except for the failing part. Did she revise your grade, based on doing things correctly for your accent?

She was actually quite awesome - she rescored my test and for every test after that she would have me follow her to her office after the test and say the sentences before she graded me. I ended up with a good grade in that class since I was doing the phonetic spelling correctly (for me) which was the main point of the class (think My Fair Lady).

[wolfie]

SC: Thanks. Hey listen, where are you from?
Me: Oh, I live in [the next town over]
SC: [town], England?
Me: No, just in the next town over.
SC: But you have an accent!

If you really want to confuse them, the reply to that would be "No I don't - I drive an Elantra".

[Trixie]

I'm from New Jersey and somehow found myself living in Indiana for 10 years now. I think I lost some of my accent but some words still have an east coast feel. For most people it's a two sentence conversation but there's a new kid at work that's still fasinated with when I say certain words. Just get over it, already.

[raudf]

As a kid, my dad was stationed either right next to the Arctic Circle or south of the Mason-Dixon. I wound up with what would be called a "Midwest," accent - or a close to neutral, depending on who was describing it. So, when I started school in Arkansas, I had teachers trying to place where I was from. Or "Wow, you have no real accent!" Military bases do that to a kid, because we hear it ALL.

*sigh* Thank goodness I had an ear for tones back then and picked up the local lingo pretty quickly.