Confused Accents

People on airplanes always ask where my accent is from. I admit, it's an unusual one. It's a wide combination at this point of a variety of places I've lived, but when I'm at work the most prominent one is Scotland. It's not 100% natural when I do a thick accent on the plane but it's certainly convincing enough for Glaswegians to ask what part of Scotland I'm from. If I can fool the natives, I can fool anyone into thinking I'm originally from there. But that's not why I do it. In fact, it's not even what I answer when people ask where I'm from. I tell them the truth. My accent is so confused, even it doesn't know where it's from. It's a combination of Scotland, Arkansas and New York, paying tribute to my parents and the mixed heritage they passed down to me, as well as to my own adventures abroad. I hated the life I was secretly living in Scotland, but I loved the people, the accent and the culture. I even loved the food and I've been craving a good sausage supper from a chip shop for almost three years now. But most of all I loved that accent. I loved listening to it. 

I do the accent because people listen. 

That's right. When I make my announcements on the plane, I do it all with a Scottish accent. Most people guess me to be from Ireland, which is an entirely different accent all together; soft and lilted. But I've only ever spent four days in Dublin and I didn't get to do all I wanted to then. Someday I'll get back there. But someday will come AFTER I get back to Scotland on my own and see what I never got to see - Stirling Castle, a distillery or two, Loch Ness, several of the better known Highland castles and the Isles. 

When I say my announcements, I always do them by the book, word for word. But people have heard those a million times. They don't listen anymore. On the Bro, it's important that they listen in order to know oxygen masks are in the center aisle, not above their heads. There's only one exit up front. There's one also in the back. Two over the wings. But how do you make people want to listen to something they think they've heard a million times? With an accent. 

Every single flight someone asks "where are you from?" I always smile and I always say the same. 

"Everywhere." 

And THAT is the truth.