Welcome to your Herald University course in Thirteen Speak. This is your handy guide to communicating with that thing that lives in the bedroom that smells like an inner city farm.
Part one. Helpful phrases and meanings.
If it says. ‘Have you seen my PSP?’ That means, ‘I have lost that little plastic box that I whinged on about for months and cost £200 at Christmas.
If you ask, ‘Where did you last see it?’ the answer can be….dunno or in my bedroom. By bedroom this can mean, left on the bus, at school or under the trampoline. I left it down Nathan’s is another variation on this. Never ask who Nathan is. Life is too short.
Be careful when asking such things as. ‘Have you packed your football kit?’
If it answers immediately..yes! This means no.
Ask again five minutes later. If it says yes, this also means no but is now thinking of getting off the play station.
After another five minutes, ask again, and you will get the answer, ‘I’m doing it.’
This means that I have saved the play station game but haven’t turned it off. Unless you actually go into the ‘inner city farm’ the equipment will be left running for days. The good side of this is that, electricity bills can be used in explaining maths homework or to illustrate world poverty.
For parents who don’t actually know what a play station looks like, it will be the square thing to the left of the piles of Jaffa cake boxes, empty Haribo bags and remains of pizza crusts. It may well be decorated or surrounded by the game discs left in attractive patterns. Never attempt to put them back in the cases as all thirteen year olds know that once taken out they can never be returned. All games must be stored on carpets.
Anyway, back to the football kit. If it answers, ‘I have packed my football kit,’ this can mean….I am scrapping it out from under the bed or, it is still in the bag from last Thursday and is therefore damp and growing a penicillin culture that the NHS would be interested in.
The thirteen year old may well ask, ‘have you seen my shin pads?’ Be careful on this one. If they are not under the trampoline or anywhere in the inner city farm, you will have to ask who Nathan is as chances are….they are down Nathan’s.
We will be opening a Thirteen Speak on line shop soon so parents can easily buy items to replace those which have vanished. As all parents have unlimited funds, phone chargers and game boys, hair gel and I pod’s are all available at slightly more than you paid for them three months ago.
After this short and easy process, it may say thanks and promise to look after the new items. A separate section on these and other strange statements will appear in part two of Thirteen Speak next week.
Yours
Fitz
Director of Thirteen speak, a subsidiary of ‘Turn That Bloody Music Down’ industries.
