On a Not-Quite-Meeting of the Minds

Recently I've been trying to get a job.

One job I tried for required me to be a good speller. A lady rang me up and said, "I'd like you to do a quick spelling test on the phone. Are you ready?"

"Sure."

"OK, first word. You can write them down if you want. Parallel."

"P-A-R-A-L-L-E-L" I spelled.

"Fabulous!" she said enthusiastically.

Oh good, I thought. I passed word number one. But maybe word number two would be really tricky.

I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Then finally it clicked.

"Umm, was I supposed to spell 'Fabulous'? I mean, was that the next word?" I asked tentatively.

"Actually I said 'nebulous'," she said.

"Whoops, I mean, I thought you were saying fabulous, I mean that was a comment, I mean saying I was fabulous ..."

My voice trailed off. Maybe I wasn't Fabulous. Heck, perhaps I was Nebulous. And how DID you spell "Parallel", anyhow?

Well I'm glad the next word hadn't been "Loser" or "Unimpressive" because I think I might have dented my ego irreparably. As it was I fortunately got through the test, and fortunately there were not too many other words on it to take personally.

The Forgotten Mums

Just recently someone mentioned to me that the Today Show (Channel 9) did a story on mothers. They referred to 3 categories of "Mummies":

Yummy Mummies
Sportish but stylish Mummies and what they referred to as
Slummy Mummies

and continuously referred to "Slummy Mummy" in their show. Apparently yummy mummy is meant to be favourable and slummy mummy is not meant to be so.

Now I think this has overlooked many diffferent types of mummies. The television show has neglected to mention many different types of mummies, so I list the following:

crummy mummy (hopeless mummy)
dummy mummy (stupid mummy)
chummy mummy (mummy who's also your best friend)
tummy mummy (mum who has a paunch, probably hasn't lost fat from having three kids)
glummy mummy (mummy who's always totally depressed and thinks the world is about to end)
bummy mummy (mummy with a big rear end)
hummy mummy (mummy who hums classic rock while she does the dishes)
summy mummy (mum who's a whiz at arithmetic, usually good at household budgets, corrects the checkout chicks a lot and helps you with your maths homework)
gummy mummy (mummy whose teeth fell out due to eating too many lollies in her youth)
scummy mummy (mummy who doesn't bathe too often)
mummy mummy (embalmed mother)