It’s been a tough year – again – but there are some things columnist Kerry Parnell wants us to put behind us in 2022, starting with anything to do with Covid.
Let’s start the new year by putting these words to rest, once and for all:
1-17: Covid, virus, pandemic, lockdown, masks, lateral flow tests, Delta, Omicron, vaccines, border closures, travel restrictions, Covid passports. The day these terms stop being everyday parlance cannot come fast enough.
18. Mindfulness: If ever there was a word that has been overused, it’s mindfulness. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully behind the concept of understanding your emotions, in fact I am so aware of mine, I am begging for everyone to stop going on about mindfulness all the time.
My kids’ school sends out so many mindfulness emails, info-sheets and surveys, it’s stressing me out. The final mindfulness survey at the end of term, asking me whether I was mindful of mindfulness threatened to tip me over the edge and into the Christmas abyss, which I would imagine was the opposite of their intention, so I simply deleted it instead and instantly felt much better about my mental health.
19. Mental health: Which leads me to the sibling of mindfulness, mental health. Again, of course it is great that as a society we are all much more aware of mental health issues, but instead of talking about them incessantly “to raise awareness”, we need to actually do something.
It’s time to stop paying lip service to it and start paying for it – funding the frontline with more therapists, more beds, more real-time help for those who need it.
20. Teat pipette: I just hate the words, thank you.
21. Panties: Dear men of 2022, do not use this word, ever. It’s the serial killer of underwear descriptors, enough to terminate any relationship on utterance. Haven’t you ever noticed the lady in your life doesn’t call her undies “panties”? Never wondered why? I’ll tell you – it’s because it is impossible to say without utilising a particular pervy breathy tone. Don’t try. Really, don’t.
In my twenties, me and my friend once broke down near the Belanglo State Forest (yes, that one) and had to be towed back to Sydney late at night by two guys who regaled us with stories of their mate who kept a blow-up doll sitting in his car in his garage, dressed in a mini-skirt and … yes, you know it’s coming, here it is, “panties”. This conversation happened 25 years ago and their voices and that word has been indelibly imprinted in my mind to this day.
22. Cancelled: Finally, after we’ve cancelled all the above, can we stop cancelling things? Call me crazy (and yes, everyone does) but there was a time when people managed to get along with each other whilst holding opposing views about such things as politics, sporting teams and other outlooks on life. I think … and I may be wrong, here, but do you know, it was a time before, yes, I’ve got it … Twitter.
In ye olden days pre-social media, a pile-on was either a footie term or electricity pole, being in the TERF club had nothing to do with J.K. Rowling and everything to do with racing and the only thing being de-platformed was your train home.
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