Yesterday was the first time in a while that my whole family was at home. Let’s see what happened…
Mum
Mum watched as I scooped freshly made fruit salad from the big silver bowl to my mug. Mmm, more mango… As soon as I put the lid back, mum whipped the bowl open again and looked at me reproachfully. “Joan, you left a hole in the fruit salad again!”
She picked up the ladle and nudged some watermelon, pear and apple back into the depression.
Dad
“Joan! Have a look at this.”
I wandered over to my dad sitting in front of the computer. “What’s up, dad?”
“I’m thinking of buying shares in this company. IBA just announced a takeover bid for HCN.” He clicked and pulled up a chart. “Look at that!” We both marvelled at the single day vertical rise of HCN’s share price. “We’ve missed the boat on that one, of course, but IBA might still be a good prospect…”
Click, click and we soon had a graph for IBA’s six-month performance. “Oh,” dad sounded disappointed. “It looks like the price has already risen.”
“Dad, you have to think of the future potential, not the past performance. Remember when I bought WOW? You said that if you had seen how much the price had already risen, you would never have bought it. But look how much I’ve made on it!”
Dad nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true. Okay, I’ll do some more research.” And he happily continued clicking.
Jason
“Joan! Joan! I have an exam tomorrow. Do you have a pencil I can borrow?”
“Yes, take the grey pacer. *Sigh* I’ve lost my yellow pacer. It’s my favourite.”
“I’ll need an eraser and pacer leads, too.”
I handed them over.
“Thanks!” and he dashed back to his room to respond to an ICQ message.
Five minutes later, he came back in with his school bag and a sheepish smile on his face.
“Er, Joan? Remember the last time I had an exam? Well, I borrowed some stuff then.”
He laid out the grey pacer, combination pen/pencil eraser and box of HB leads I had just lent him, reached into his bag and pulled out a yellow pacer, my favourite eraser and a box of 2B leads.
I looked at him and started laughing. “All right, Jason. Which set do you want?”
“Um.” He compared them critically. “I’ll take them both, just in case.”