My Fellow Inebriates,

For the longest time, Miss P was afraid to enter the public washroom at Save-On Foods because there was an octopus in it.

 

Mum was a bit slow on the uptake. Save-On Foods’ octopus was graffiti-free, so she saw nothing but a door hook.

 

 

Meanwhile, P was seeing octopuses* everywhere, and V was starting to see them too. Did their mother clue in?

 

 

She did not.

 

 

Like plenty of adults, she apparently lacked the neural plasticity to perceive these rampant octopodes.**

 

 

And Dad wasn’t seeing them either.

Not that P and V wished to see octopi*** while urinating. But that’s when they tend to show up.

 

 

* “Octopuses” is considered the most acceptable plural form of “octopus” because “octopus” is not a Latin word but a Latinized Greek word coined after Latin had become a dead language. Even if it were a Latin word, it would need to be a second declension masculine Latin noun to warrant an “i” ending, and don’t ask me what the hell that means.

** “Octopodes” is a reasonable (although not uncontroversial) choice for those torn between the instinct to pluralize “octopus” as “octopi” and the knowledge that doing so is, in fact, incorrect. Using “octopodes” does, however, make you sound like a pedantic douchebag.

*** “Octopi” is listed in most dictionaries after “octopuses” and sometimes even after “octopodes.” Some dictionaries do not even list it as an option. So the next time some smug grammar nut corrects your “octopuses” to “octopi,” make like a drunken octopus and start a fight.