Seven Things I Should Know

  1. Compound interest. I kinda get it but don’t expect me to draw a comprehensive graph on the whiteboard and give a Ted Talk on it. 
  2. How I want to die (my parents’ illness has brought that home with a vengeance).
  3. Preferential voting. The least I can do is explain how Australia votes while chastising the Americans about their idiotic voting system.  
  4. My mother. I’m hardly Robinson Crusoe with this one. I wish I'd known more things about her beyond being my mother.  
  5. Why Pluto was downgraded to dwarf planet status. My niece asked me the other day and I had no freaking idea why. I would like to think at least one person on this earth thinks I know shit. 
  6. The difference between systolic and diastolic pressure. My doctor thinks I have mild hypertension (I think I have white coat blood pressure but that’s a whole other story) so it’s best to bone up on this stuff. 
  7. Be able to recite Ted Hughes’ The Thought Fox. Just because.