Glimpse of Another Dimension

Sitting in a Mexican restaurant today I overheard a conversation between two young ladies, or perhaps it was not so much a conversation as a soliloquy since one of them did all the talking. This is all the more remarkable because, as far as I could tell, she is from an alternate dimension where they don't talk at all.

I was trying not to listen, of course, but I couldn't help but notice that in her universe nobody seems to talk. They communicate entirely by similes -- a sort of serial resemblance where they take turns being somehow like a statement or a concept. She related several interactions between a number of different individuals and nobody every said anything.

As I said, I was trying not to listen, but I found myself waiting in considerable suspense to see if she would ever use the words "he said" or "she said" and, in the whole 15 minutes, it never happened. I learned that her father, at some time, was like "Your mother wouldn't like that" and that subsequently she was like "I don't care."

Now you may think that I might be unfamiliar with the use of the word "like" in slang to signify a statement, gesture or expression that conveys an edgy attitude along with (or instead of) a statement of fact, as in "He was, like, 'Whoa, those are some smelly feet!!' " I am, actually, quite familiar with it but that sense of "like" is only used occasionally, not in every sentence.

She left before I did and as she passed by, I was like, get a thesaurus! But maybe she wasn't listening... more maybe I didn't do it right.