Eddie the Echo

McDonald's had an incredibly ill-fated ad campaign in the States a few years ago featuring a character called Eddie the Echo. The executive summary of these ads is that this was the kind of guy who got beat up in high school. Frequently. To call him annoying would be an understatement comparable to suggesting that Mike Tyson has anger management issues. I remember thinking at the time that if I ever saw this guy walking down the street, it would require every ounce of self-restraint I possessed not to haul off and kick him right in the McNuggets. (Come to think of it, maybe I have anger management issues.)




The reason I bring this up is that there's a guy who runs a little coffee-and-pastries stand on the ground floor of the building where I work. He's friendly, always pleasant, and never fails to say hello when I walk by.

The problem is, he always says it twice. "Tjena tjena," he'll say. If you say "hej," he'll come back with "hej hej!" I suppose it doesn't seem that annoying in print, but it has gotten to the point where my co-workers and I have started to speculate about how he might react to other "inputs." ^*

For instance, I wonder what would happen if I said "hej hej" to him myself.

Hej hej hej hej?!?

On second thought, that would make him sound like a Swedish Fat Albert, which is a bit much for my brain first thing in the morning. Maybe I'd better just keep my sparkling wit to myself.

^* (Nerd alert: if you are an engineer, you may recognize this as simply the measurement of an impulse response. If you value your friends, you will keep this to yourself, too.)