My life is an enigma
My son just told me he didn’t want me writing about him anymore, so I said; “There goes the money for your iPhone contract then,” and here I am again, with his blessing.
At least he expressed himself in a full sentence. I’ve got used to decoding his speech lately, because he only speaks in acronyms. You teach your child to speak and express themselves eloquently and the next thing you know the hormones have kicked in, and so has a more time-efficient way of communicating. It makes sense really – the brain rewires itself during the teenage years, so time spent forming full sentences is time wasted that could be better spent of figuring out how to boost your ranking on Hearthstone or filming your next Vine.
He’s getting almost as hard to decode as the dog, who of course only has barks at his disposal. If you too have both a teenager and a dog, here’s my handy guide to deciphering their respective enigma codes, thereby making your lives happier, healthier and altogether less cheek-clenchingly frustrating.
Son’s acronyms
NPNo problem
NBNot bad
IDKI don’t know
JKJust kidding
GGGood good
DW (D-dubs)Don’t worry
WTHWhat the hell?
WTFWhat the funk?
TBHTo be honest
BTWBy the way
TYThank you
AFKAway from keyboard
BRBBe right back
LMALeave me alone
LOLBut only said sarcastically because adults have appropriated it
NOOBNewbie, e.g. someone who doesn’t know that it’s A to jump
GWTFGo with the flow
GTGGot to go
CYLSee you later
IRLIn real life (as in life lived offline, AFK).
The dog’s communications present a similarly complex code to break, though his list is nowhere near as long because his needs are pretty simple – eat, walk, sleep, poop, repeat. But just as a new mother learns to decode her baby’s cries (I never figured it out though, so no wonder they never shut up), so I’ve had to learn how to interpret his barks.
Type of bark
Short, sharp: Freaked out – “There’s a saucepan in the wrong place/branch banging against the window/big scary bin in my line of sight”.
Shorter, sharper, interspersed with short silences, sounds as if performed from a distance: Freaked out – “I’m in the wrong garden, get me outta here”.
Yet shorter, sharper: “I need to go out to wee/poo/tend to the holes in the garden – they don’t just dig themselves you know”.
Deep, loud and menacing, especially useful for waking up lazy owners at four in the morning: Guard dog – “Something has rolled past the door in the storm/a heavy footfall similar to my owner’s is approaching though it can’t possibly be him/the postman’s here again but they could all be armed killers after my puppy food”.
Muffled bark: “I went into the bathroom for a rifle through the dirty laundry basket and the big wooden thing shut so I’m stuck in here again”.
TTFN.
