What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

Walking into the kitchen from a rather un-productive spree at the fabric shop, I said to the roommate from Texas, "What's with the stunna shades inside?"

"Did you just say stunner shades?"

Based on the way he asked his question, I felt trying to explain the "a" versus "er" was going to be futile. (He is apparently not as up on these critical differences as some people.) So, I just said, "yea."

"These are stunner shades?" He took off his giant aviators and examined them. "What are stunner shades?" He looked over at the girl from North Carolina who shrugged.

"You know, like T.I. wears."

"Who's T.I.?" (The man has Justin Timberlake on his ringtone!) This time I looked at the girl from North Carolina, as he inquired as to whether or not she knew who that was. She did not. "Is that a rapper? I don't really listen to rap music."

His being a law student, I mentioned that maybe he had heard of T.I.'s arrest for, as a convicted felon, sending undercover agents out to buy illegal guns on the black market. He had not heard of the story. I went to get my laptop and pulled up a nice picture of T.I. in stunna shades.

They happened to look just like the ones my roommate was wearing.

"Those just look like over-sized aviators!" he exclaimed.

"Well, yes, but, here..." I googled stunna shades. Someone on the web can always explain things like this better than I can. The first entry was Urban Dictionary. Perfect! Except that then I had to try to explain words in the definition.

1. stunna shades :

The kind of crazy looking glasses that people wear when they go hyphy (wild).. they are usually round like two circles, and very big in size.

I didn't go beyond "hyphy" being a Bay Area thing, and suggested he try the second definition.

2. stunna shades :

Oversized dark shades worn as an accessory to going dumb, usually mirrored aviators.

That didn't go much better since "going dumb" also escaped him. He moved onto the next definition. This third definition actually gave me some info I didn't know, apparently the phrase started in "the Yay Area". Having also to explain this to my roommates (now 3 of them in the kitchen), I simply said "here".

The guy from Texas finished trying to read the dictionary definitions, turned to me and said, "You certainly know a lot about, um..." pause "local culture."

(Original Post)

Bedroom

Scared

My Love - Justin Timberlake feat. T.I.