I Didn't Quite Catch That......

I have discovered something slightly odd....when one develops a cold, people can't understand you, even though you are speaking english. It's like your congested nasal passages translates everything that comes out of your mouth into Russian. Or Ukrainian. Even though you are speaking a language that is spoken worldwide, and one that you speak every day, suddenly no-one can understand a word you are saying!

A good example would be a phone call that I had to make recently. I had to contact a call centre for product support. Unfortunately this call centre was in India, and the call centre agent's first language was not english, so I was in trouble from the opening line:

Call Centre Agent: Welcome to ***** Product Support, how may I help you?

Me: Hi, this is Adrian. I'm having issues with my ***** product. (That is what I said, but he heard "askd, haskrhahf, aioeurhasijijpanufea.)

CCA: I'm sorry Sir, please be repeating that?

Me: I said by dame ish Adrian. I'b having problems with by ***** product.

CCA: Okay Sir, what problems are you experiencing?

Me: I can't ushe the **** function. It keepsh (sniff) crashing. And when I (sniff, cough, snort) click on the (chesty cough) troubleshooting option, it (launches into coughing fit).....

CCA: I'm sorry Sir, I am not understanding the problem.

Me: I said I askrjh hfaioejnfaso fpadjkfsnajhod ap[osjkdfias!

CCA: I'm going to be putting you through to my manager Sir, please be holding....

Call cuts out

So, I got nowhere for two reasons, first I was coughing, sniffing, dying in his ear, so he was probably distracted. Second, I was doing my best to speak english but ended up just speaking snot. So his comment about putting me through to his manager was probably his excuse for dropping the call and then phoning the Centre for Disease control to report a case of Ebola.

Hopefully the cold meds will restore some semblance of spoken language to me, so that people don't look at me like I'm brain damaged when I talk. Either that or it will knock me out, leaving me drooling on my desk and thus unable to confuse people further. Seems that I just can't win!