My daughter, known to many of you, has recently graduated from watching * Sex and the City* to rubbishy teenage movies on Star and HBO, when I’m doing the crossword or reading C.S. Lewis’s snappily-titled * English Literature in the 16th Century, excluding Drama*, which is actually a lot better than it sounds.
From these, and various offerings on Nickelodeon (god! you Americans are going to be purged one day, if, like me, you believe in a kind of ante-room for heaven - even if you don’t, come to think of it, given the lack of say we’ll have in the matter), she has developed various obnoxious speech habits, chief of which is saying “Waddevah” in response to suggestions from me and her mum.
So, I’ve come up with a plan to curb her prefabricated banality, and it’s working so well I thought I’d share it with all you concerned parents (and grandparents), not to mention uncles and aunts, “uncles” and “aunts”, and all you guys who want to have children one day. Not forgetting all the GLT folk (I think I left a letter off, but I can’t think of another quiver to that particular bow), who are actually no different to the straight folk, since, just like them, some of you love kids and want to have them (and can, thanks to changing social mores, advanced technology and “liberal” legislation), and some of you can’t stand them.
Anyway, the plan works like this: every time she says that nauseating word, she gets fined HK$5 (about 75 cents - nothing for kids these days, I think you’ll agree). Now the really cunning part of this plan is that, in the interests of equity and reciprocity, I said she could fine me for any word or formula she considers I overuse. So, she chose a pet word I use for the hamsters when I feel like it, which tends to disconcert visitors, but which my family have got used to. It’s difficult to transcribe (and I’m not going to go into its etymology), but it goes something like this: “Iszh Meee!”
It’s working like a dream, you know. Last night alone (the first night of operation), I made $20.
