Last Friday morning, I had History class. Tiredly I walked into the classroom — it had been a somewhat sleep-deprived week — and seated myself at a table in the front row, as is compulsory for History classes. My History teacher greeted me with the sentence, “Congratulations, Jess! You will have the opportunity to exercise your limited democratic rights today!”
He referred to the elections for next year’s school captains, which were held after recess that day. We had talked before about how the elections were being run, and had (as usual…) been unable to agree. My History teacher thought they were being marvellously. Pseudo-democratic, just as it should be. No rights to privacy or secret ballots, as it should be. No possibility of electing an “inappropriate” candidate to represent the people, as it should be. Read on…
This is what was written in the birthday card my Dad gave me this morning:
To our lovely Jessica,
Wishing you a very happy birthday and thanks for 16 years of your charm, humour and wonderful companionship!
Love, Mom & Dad
I didn’t want to seem ungrateful for the card, but there was one thing I felt I had to say. “…‘Mom’?”
My Dad seemed confused. “Yeah? What about it?”
“Well, you wrote ‘mom’ in my card.”
“Yeah, and? Why can’t I write ‘mum’ in your card?”
“But see, you didn’t write ‘mum’. You wrote ‘mom’. Like, with an ‘O’.”
“Oh.” Dad paused, wondering what excuse he could offer me. “Well, I’ve just been on the phone for two hours with Americans!”
“Right…”
“And anyway, you know, there’s nothing wrong with writing ‘mom’! I mean, how do you spell ‘mother’? You don’t spell it with a ‘U’, do you? I mean, who spells ‘mother’ with a ‘U’? You spell ‘mother’ with an ‘O’ and so you also spell ‘mom’ with an ‘O’.”
“Dad,” I said, “you can’t complain about how I’m using Australian English.”
Dad seemed deflated. “I can try.”
On Tuesday, I very unwisely made a confession to a couple of friends.
This confession went, “Yeah, I usually drink about three… four? five? cups of coffee a day.”
They were thunderstruck. Three cups of coffee? As in, three cups of coffee? A day?! They really were horrified. They told me that, if I cared for my health at all, I should reduce the amount of coffee I drank each day right now. (In fact, coffee actually has health benefits, but I didn’t have the evidence on hand at the time to argue my case.) Preferably to zero, like them.
Well, I wasn’t quite prepared to do that. Read on…