Teandra’s Rough Draft

I remember this day better than any other day. My friends and I went out for a swim at our local pool. It was the middle of summer and the heat from sun felt so intense we thought our brains were going to melt. During days like these I hated going out, but whenever I didn’t want to go my two best friends Adia and Cassidy would always say, “stop being so salty and let’s go.” Salty seemed to be our go to word throughout every encounter. We said it about ten times a day. Sometimes to each other and other times we would relate it to someone else based on their attitude. My first time using the word “salty” was at our local pool. My friends and I were swimming and joking around in the pool when I accidently splashed a bit of water into Adia’s eyes as I was trying to perform a backflip. This made her highly upset as she continued to state, “I can’t see … I can’t see!” we were all young at the time, so I didn’t take her seriously. My only response was, “Stop being such a salty baby.” There were some kids that surrounded us in the pool and began to laugh at my smart remark, and from that day on the word “Salty” stuck to my friends and I like glue. Luckily Adia eyes were ok. She was just being her over dramatic self as always, but that word just wouldn’t get out of my head. Throughout the rest of the summer, my two friends and I continued to use it. My mother would hear us saying it and would often ask, “where do you girls come up with these kinds of things.” But we would just burst out laughing knowing that she wouldn’t understand it even if she tried. Other kids through out our neighborhood wanted in on our word as well, but we would never let them in on our usage of the word or our personal definition of it. For simply if you weren’t apart of our clique you weren’t allowed to say it.
Surprisingly as adults my friends and I, use the word “Salty” probably now more than ever. It some what has a sense of importance to our relationship. Its like our own safe word whenever we’re in certain situations. Whenever we use the word salty around strangers, or people that are outside of our circle their facial expressions always fill with confusion. Usually when people hear the word salty, they think of salty food, or too much seasoning, but to us we knew that they were using the word very indirectly. Maybe that’s the main reason why the word salty means so much to us. We placed our own definition to it. We gave it purpose and meaning especially within our friendship. Throughout our Highschool experience my friends and I became obsessed with the word salty. I remember the other kids would try to tease us or mimic our usage of the word especially because we never used It outside of our group. Although they would laugh and tease, we often didn’t really care. Our word wasn’t for other people to like or for others to become fond of it. It was a way for us to communicate through our own secret language. It was a way for us to speak indirectly to others but understand exactly what was being said to each other. It was an escape from the modern everyday English language with our very own twist to it. It was a word that was meant for us and only us.
As you can see the word salty have great meaning and value towards my friends and I. It stuck with us from teens all the way up to adult hood. It stuck with us from high school all the way up to college. and now even as adults the word salty still seems to never get old. I think my friends and I have grown to let others in on our secret word. It seems like throughout our years of adulting we’ve meet even more great friends that understood out usage of salty, and how to properly direct it into a sentence. We still often laugh when strangers don’t have a clue on what we’re referring to when we use the word, but I guess that’s what makes it so special. The word salty hold great importance in my life. Not only because I grew up using it almost every day but because It’s almost like an addition towards my childhood friends. It some what made my friends and I childhood bound greater and stronger just because we had our own special word. and through the years as I continue on as an adult, and until I’m old and grey, I will forever continue to use the word salty for our secret language will always be here to stay.