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"Hey Slick."
So, to top off a day on which my best friend had been hospitalised by an unusually aggressive ficus plant, my dog had slept through lunch, and I had a pounding headache from a partially watered down lemonade and a packet of chocolate covered coffee beans (I was quitting the cigarettes once and for all, and was trying to find a suitable replacement), I was now apparently being hassled by a talking duck. One who probably should have put a comma in between the 'hey' and 'slick', as well, I was almost certain. In the various permutations of meanings those two words could have had together I would feel relatively comfortable putting money on the necessary existence of a comma in there, whether the duck be commenting that, 'hey, that (something) was slick' or calling out to someone he was affectionately (or otherwise) was nicknaming Slick, or any other hitherto un-thought-of variation on the theme. Or perhaps he was some sort of foreign duck, for whom English wasn't his first language --it was plausible-- and it was just his pronunciation that was lacking that made it sound like he'd missed out the comma. Actually, to call it lacking is somewhat harsh, and probably a bit unfair of myself, as it was, if he wasn't a native English speaker then it was quite impressive his vocabulary already, and I should give credit where credit is due... though, thinking about it, 'hey', and 'slick' doesn't exactly qualify as a robust vocabulary and my readiness to count it as such was probably more insulting than the original (rather condescending) thought that because the duck wasn't a native English speaker was the reason for improper placement (or, in this case, non-placement) of commas. Maybe it was a Puerto Rican or Russian sort of duck that insisted on retaining his own special brand of English to differentiate himself in the tough job market. At any rate, it was the sort of thing, the potentially missing comma, that niggled at the back of my brain. And the fore of my brain, as was evident from the amount of time I'd spent thinking about it already. The sun was beating down rather warmly on my pate, the pavement, the talking duck, and the signpost, a stop sign, that it was leaning against.
So I was standing, there, in the middle of the street, talking to a duck. "What?" I thought about voicing my questions about the potential missing comma, but thought better of it. No use hassling a duck when it could be avoided.
"I wasn't talking to you," said the duck. And he pushed off the sign post and waddled away down the street.
disclaimer:
And so we're off the Sane Magazine Robot that we'd been on the past few weeks, the bulk of the staff back from Egypt, Andalucia, Rotterdam, and Padstow, whence they'd all fled for a few weeks without announcing anything to the vast majority of you for a good few sessions of sitting in the sun and not doing a whole lot of things.
Look for the travellogue coming soon in the next few weeks with a recap of the adventures they got up to...
Amazing, the things these kids can do these days with a few scripts and a few little programs.
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