A Probability of Being

I recently received in my inbox an email from my father, who likes to forward me a lot of things that he thinks will interest me. Except of course, he never really realizes just how easily antsy I can get, and how willing I am to pick apart an article. (I used to hit Reply to All whenever he'd send me an email to let all and sundry know what I thought and all the problems with whatever he sent me, so now he wisely BCCs people instead.) This article was about Miss Singapore, and I can't find the original article, but hree's another one about the same issue . While at the Miss World pageant in South Africa, she inadvertently slipped into speaking Singlish, the Singaporean creole that mixes English, Malay, Chinese and god knows what else. And this was a huge fucking deal because apparently, all beauty queens must be able to speak perfect English, the standard of which is probably set by the English-speaking world that is the UK and North America, I guess. And because Miss S...

One day, I was in MacDonald's, joining a lineup. In front of me was this young woman, possibly in her late teens, early 20's. She wore a tank and jeans. Her expression was totally spaced out. She had a twonie in her hand. She asked the woman in front of her, "do you have any change?" to which the answer was a negative. She turned to me, asking the same question. I didn't have change either. She went around me to ask people behind me the same thing. Then came back in front of me. I asked, "what do you need it for?" "I just want to get a burger, that's all." "I'll get it for you," I said. When we got to the counter, she ordered a cheeseburger, a large fries, large drink, and a McFlurry. I ordered a medium fries and a second cheeseburger. I paid, and we sat down together. She ate intently, still completely spaced out. I asked where she was from, she said, "Bridgewater," a town which is an hour or two's drive from Ha...