Main Piece:

The following is transcribed from a conversation between the informant and the interviewer.

Interviewer: I’m pretty sure we’ve talked about this before, but do you know what you’re supposed to do when you drive through a tunnel?

Informant: I’ve heard a lot of things haha but I haven’t done most of them since I was a kid. 

Interviewer: Yeah same haha my sister told me that we should hold our breath and touch the ceiling, and then say Banana as soon as we got out the other side of the tunnel.

Informant: Yeah ours was similar but we had to put our feet up too and just say any fruit. I haven’t done it since I started driving though haha

Background:

My informant was born and raised in Southern California. Her Parents were also raised in the same area. She grew up near my hometown, where the only routes to the beach have several tunnels to get there, so I knew she would have some insight into this subject of what to do when going through tunnels.

Context:

I spoke to my informant over a facetime call during the 2020 Coronavirus epidemic. We had plans to meet in person, however, the quarantine made that impossible.

Thoughts:

I was surprised by how different her approach was when going through a tunnel, even though there were similar aspects. We grew up within miles of each-other, so I expected us to have basically the exact same story. This just made me realize that who you hang out with does actually play a very large role in what you think is true, even if we get most of our information from the internet these days.