Today - which is Wednesday, but I keep thinking is Friday because school is completed for the year - my youngest son finished Year 10. Today is the last day he wore his blue school polo shirt because the senior school wear white shirts in the establishment where he is learning. He came home with his shirt covered in black sharpie-d signatures and slogans. Reminds me of my final day in Year 10 when my class signed each other's uniform. I have a recollection of the deputy principal warning us there would be trouble for anybody who partook in what was a school tradition, but we went ahead and did it anyway. What was he going to do, expel us? We were finished! Next year, my youngest will be a senior. Gosh.
I asked my lad had they performed an end-of-year skit for the entertainment of the student body. They had not. We did. We pretended to be the teachers having a staff meeting. Everybody contributed ideas for the script, which I wrote. Can I just say it was, well, accurate? I played the English/History teacher, who had this quirk of telling the class, in air-raid siren tones, 'There is to be NOOOOOOOO talking!' The following year, when I was in Year 11, I was recruited by the then-Year 10s (at the suggestion of one of the teachers) to assist with writing their script. I had fun collaborating, but clashed with the kid directing. Artistic differences, I guess.
Today, I will just make a little list of some things I don't like:
1. Statements that begin: 'If you want MY advice...'. No, turkey; I DON'T want your advice. If I want your advice, I will ASK.
2. Apropos of the above point, statements that begin: 'Why don't you...?'. The reason I don't is because I don't want to do it, or maybe can't afford it, or am maybe physically incapable of doing it. Whatever the reason, I will not be taking that course of action. If the phrase is re-framed to 'have you considered', then I am more likely to mull it over. There is something obnoxiously imperative about 'why don't you', and the phrase never ceases to set my teeth on edge. I think it's because I have memories of overbearing people offering unsolicited advice. Sounds a bit like Point 1 above, doesn't it?
3. Fennel. Oh, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against fennel bulbs sliced and put into a salad. I kind of like those, and I don't mind licorice, either. I just have issue with the wild fennel growing in the vacant lot next to my home. The lot's owners had the land mowed today, so the air is redolent with the stuff, and my eyes are itching, and I'm sneezing with such ferocity that my nose is in danger of flying away. If this happens, I will have no nose, and be like Michael Jackson, if Michael Jackson had been a reasonably slim, pale-skinned woman. Oh, wait...
Over the next week, I will be arranging ISBNs for my books in order to facilitate uploading to Ingram Sparks. After such time, I can start marketing again and you can start buying. Won't that be super-funsies?
Anyway, time for my cup of tea. Got trivia tonight. My son probably still won't acquiesce to naming our team Tess Tickles.
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