Turns out – much to my shameful incredulity (as I lay by the pool with my eyes closed beneath the radiant yellow sunshine) – that the loud woman I overheard nearby was Canadian. From Ontario. Near Toronto. Her strident voice was otherwise distinguished by two features; one, the frequent repetition of “Oh, wow!” and words such as “awesome!” and “cool”; two, a thankful lack of fillers such as “like” and “ah”. In fact her animated and inspiriting discourse was objectively well-presented, unanticipatedly and spontaneously interjected with cryptic insights into morality, finance and intelligence. Suddenly for example she asserted the importance of “confirmation of others” and the priority of family over money. She knowingly remarked that children often fail to understand the language of adults. There were two additional telling characteristics; one, her voice sounded like that of a man; and, two, her account was distinctly plain and direct (that is, she stated facts without pretence or embellishment, at times self-effacing and rendering a more candidate iteration of facts than is normally predicted in communications with strangers around a pool). In the result hers was a refreshing narrative in spite of being inescapably audible and moderately disruptive.
