Define: Totes

Totes


(adv) wholly, entirely, completely (comparative way totes and totes totes)


(slang) to the extreme (comparative way totes and totes totes)


Origins of totes


To make totally - with all of its connotations - come out of one's mouth faster than ever. I cannot remember exactly where totes came from or when exactly it infiltrated conversation. I have a feeling that it arrived about the same time as def, jeal, and prob. 


For the first few weeks after assimilating totes into my vernacular, I struggled with how to spell it in text messages. It took my bestie C's reminders of basic 3rd grade phonetics before I finally mastered the spelling  of totes. And, this is what I reminded (read: this is what I learned for the first time at age 26):


Totes, by this definition, is not the plural form of the word tote, as in, "I can't wait for my Mark Sanford tote bag to arrive in the mail!"


Nor is totes the plural form of that amazing starchy treat, tater tots, which The Yacht Club serves in pitchers.


And, finally, totes is in no way etymologically related to Toto, the amazing 80's rock band which brought us the totes classic, "Africa." It may or may not be my ring tone.





The uses of totes


via text


MS: i just heard a christmas melody on the radio and it was acapella group sining 12 days of christmas to africa by toto. yeah it was amazing.
Me: What?! Totes Jeal! I'm going to find it online RIGHT now!

via email


M: Talked to Heidi this weekend via K and she totes said to come down whenever. So, that's my plan. Stat.

in conversation


Me: Arg! This day can be done whenever. It's been a totes waste!


In summary and in conclusion


Totes might make the user sound slightly like a valley girl of the late 1980's. However, (bear with me as I jump on the band wagon) it is a sustainable word. Totes a whole two characters less than totally and therefore takes less time and subsequently less electricity to type. As far as using it in speech, it's totes lazy, and I'm totes ok with that. Totes.

It's like living in a terrerium

So, there I was, minding my own business, reading "Everything Is Illuminated" aloud to my unappreciative cat, when it happened. One, single, cold drop dripped on to my cheek with a deafening pop. It was the drop that launched a thousand drips.

I had been waiting for this to happen.

A little earlier that evening, I had heard what sounded like Niagara Falls cascading from the apartment upstairs. However, some times it sounds like that when my upstairs neighbors flushes the toilet. But, this rather ominous gushing noise kept gushing. And, that’s when I got nervous. There must have been an Olympic sized pool’s worth of water up there and it was going to spill over onto his floor causing a 1,000 year flood that would fall from his apartment in my freshly cleaned and decorated living room.

So, I marched my self-righteous ass upstairs to bang on my neighbor’s door to tell him that his tub was obviously full enough. Of course he didn’t answer. I could hear though this thin wall water filling up his floor and trying to find its way through to my haven.

It was from where I stood on that empty landing that I could see my future. My cat and scraps of paper and measuring cups and Christmas ornaments float past my stereo in a petrified brilliance while I cry in the bathtub as I ride the rapids out of my kitchen window and down the hill. I decided that I was having none of that.

So, I read. If it was flooding up there and not down here, than there was nothing I could do until things changed.

And, that is when the drop dripped, followed by an immediate flood down the wall behind me, pooling behind the bookcase. Surprisingly, the most water came pouring off of the ceiling fan/light fixture combo in the middle of the room, gushing right on the antique rug.

Thanks to skills honed from a lifetime of living where hurricanes hit, the ukulele, my library and all upholstered items were quickly moved to safety and water containing containers were strategically placed.

Maintenance was called and the waiting began. The cat alternated between being perched on my shoulder starring in terror at the scene unfolding before her and being amused by the dripping, plopping and tiny splashing of the drops falling into soup pots and tin compost buckets. The plumber was called. Nothing could be done but clean up the mess, contain the water and enjoy the pitter-patter of my own personal rain shower.

(watch the cat freak out and the water run!)

At some point late in the night, the dripping into my large red mixing bowl in the middle of the living room finally stopped. The water containing receptacles were filled with muddy orange water as I left for work this morning.

I have come to learn that it was not the negligence of my upstairs neighbor that caused this great flood. It was in fact the woman living above him whose shower we all shared thanks to faulty plumbing.

And, as my boss told me yesterday, faulty plumbing and faulty philosophers lead to poor plumbing and poor philosophies. Lord only knows that means.