The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

“My granddaughter tells me, get this, I need to call her they.” Fairlane Freddie is stirring another bucket of sugar into his already sucrose saturated coffee. The Flatheads are assembled for their Monday morning soiree at the Diner, vintage cars parked in a line outside that would make a scene in American Graffiti look modern.

“They what?’ Little Jimmy wants to know. “What what?” Fred mutters, ‘what they.” Two Toke stifles a laugh and coughs caffeine into his nose. “ Another educational morning for the unwoke,” he finally manages to squeak after cleaning the coffee off his beard and out of his sinuses. “You never heard of gender neutral pronouns?”

Pretty obviously Fred hasn’t. “What the hell are you talking about? My granddaughter is a girl. Daughter, get it? That makes her a she, not a they. They is plural last time I was taught English.” Little Jimmy asks, “When was that, sixth grade? Times have changed in the past 60 years, Fred. You need to get up to speed. Speaking of which, you drop in that V-8 yet? You been talking about that for years.”

“Screw the V-8, I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with my granddaughter who thinks she’s not a girl. What does that make her, then?” Jimmy says why don’t you ask her and Fred, shuddering so bad he spills his coffee, admits he’s afraid of the answer. “What if she identifies as a he? Or worse.”

A terrible silence descended on the Diner as the Car Guyz pondered the possibilities. Worse? Holy Hemi, breakfasts sat suspended as they whirled through the horrible potentials. Animals? Cat might be okay, but …? Maybe one of those make-believe things, whatchacallit, an avatar, could be anything, nothing real. A they? Sure, a they.

Two Toke finally interrupted the séance. “She’s just saying, Fred, her generation wants you to quit making assumptions about who they are. She gets to choose, not us old farts.” Fred shook his head. “They, you mean.” TT smiled. “Exactly what I mean. Be glad we’re old, the kids got a complicated world.”

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