"Jason is making a mess, mummy." Adam is not particularly loyal to the dog, but then he doesn't like him. Dog hair makes him sneeze.

Mummy does not look: she's busy watching the game show on television. "Well, slap him on the nose and send him outside." Mummy is good at doing several things at once. Today she excels herself. Watching the game show, she is also noting that the carpet must be washed, and at the same time, is planning the menu for next Friday's dinner party.

The screen door to the patio slams and big brother Chauncey walks in, thumbs hooked into the belt of his Levis. He is Adam's hero. Chauncey is tough. He has to be, with a name like Chauncey.

   "Hello, Chauncey," says mummy, noting to have the screws of the screen door tightened, never taking her eyes from the glamorous game show, never forgetting how many eggs she'll need for the three-tier sponge cake. "What did you do in school today?" Mummy is clever. She knows that anything she says will go in one ear and out the other: she doesn't mince her words, she doesn't waste her breath. Chauncey is a big strong boy of seventeen. Chauncey is tough. He has to be, with a name like Chauncey.

   "Oh, nothin' much. We did some stupid article in English, but. Wanna hear about it?" Mummy is surprised, but she doesn't show it. Mummy is so surprised she forgets to correct Chauncey's grammar.

   "Yes, dear." Mummy is polite. She knows what's good for her. She ought to, after naming her firstborn son Chauncey.

   "Well," Chauncey begins, "there's this bloke-"

   "There is a man," mummy corrects him gently.

   "Yeah, there is a man, an' he's driving along in his car, gees, I dunno where but someplace outside the city, and he sees this chick, right-"

   "He sees a woman. Yes, go on, dear." Mummy is adamant. She won't have bad grammar in her house!

   "Yeah, right, and she's a hitch-hiker, like, y'know?" He pauses for effect.

   "Don't say 'y'know' all the time. It sounds vulgar." says mummy quietly.

   "Yeah, an' anyway, she's a hitch-hiker, an' he's driving past an' he looks at her, and she's got nothing, y'know, up..."

Adam is breathless. His hero is lost for words. Mummy is breathless. A fat woman with blue hair and a shocking orange dress is about to choose between two boxes. One contains a chance to play for the showcase (worth $10,000), the other contains a voucher for a year's supply of paper serviettes. Mummy is unfazed.

   "Yes, Chauncey, I'm listening. Go on, dear."

Chauncey takes a deep breath. "...up, well, she hasn't got a top on, and, um, she's holding out her thumb, y'know, for him to stop-"

   "Who, dear?" says mummy, willing with all her mind for Mrs Bingleburger to pick the box on the left, because, of course, the Viewers At Home know which box is which, and Mummy wants the chance at the showcase to go to the shy young fellow in the high-heeled desert boots, over there on the host's left.

   "The bloke, um, the man driving in the car. She thumbs at him to stop an' he does an' he's confused, like, and gets caught up in his seat belt an' that-"

   "Please don't say 'an' that'. It makes you sound uneducated." whispers mummy through clenched teeth, as Mrs Bingleburger turns to the frantic audience for assistance. The tension grows and the time ticks away.

   "Yeah, he gets embarrassed because the door's locked and he can't get it open for her and all the time he's looking at her, and he can't think what to say." Chauncey pauses. He anticipates another correction from mummy, but mummy merely nods. Shrugging his hefty muscled shoulders (he needs lots of muscles with a name like Chauncey) Chauncey continues, now a little breathless himself.

   "An' he finally gets the door open, see, and she gets in, and he can't believe that she's there, like. And she can't do up her seat belt and he says he'll help her do up the belt but he doesn't because she manages, and he's thinking how it goes between her-" (Chauncey has been warned against corrupting his little brother, Adam. He pretends he is just pausing for breath.) "-how it happens that she's there, but. And they're driving and-"

   "Who's driving?" asks mummy. Mrs Bingleburger was taking such a long time deciding that someone put in a commercial break. The screen was now filled with pearly suds, and several intoxicated housewives were singing about how they hardly needed to wet their hands before the washing up was done.

   "The man. And he says to her that it's unusual, like, to see a woman going topless, and she's surprised, see, an' writes it down in a notebook, right? She says she's been hitching since Watson's Bay or something and all the men that stopped for her before tried to, um, well, one guy mauled her an' that, see. Then she's going to Surry Hills, and he drops her off. She's meeting these other friends of hers, what are doing what she is. Yeah, an-"

   "Pardon, Chauncey?" Mummy is quick. Quick off the mark, quick draw, quick at everything except when in the shower.

   "Her friends. Her three friends. They're all doing the same thing - going topless." Mummy seems satisified, so he continues. "Well, they're gonna compare notes, see, on what the men thought, the men what, I mean, who, picked them up. An' what she's saying, right, is why can't girls go topless because men do, and she's saying that it's just like noses-"

   "What's 'just like noses'?" Mummy interrupts because she doesn't understand.

   "That girls going topless is no more strange than men not having bags on their noses." Mummy still doesn't understand, but the commercial break is almost over, so she just nods. Chauncey continues.

   "An', like, she's saying, an' the teacher says it's formal language, how, what the, when she explains, well, what they are really, and they're just things, well, yeah, containers, like, for the glance-"

   "Pardon?" Mummy is agitated. The cameras are showing long shots of the screaming audience.

   "You know, just 'functional containers' for the glance. What was it? Yeah, the mammary glance. And they're nothing to get excited about an' that." Mummy nods. Chauncey feels pleased with himself. Suddenly mummy screams in anguish.

   "Yeah, it's terrible, isn't it, mummy, Jason messing on the flowers like that!" Adam says from the doorway. But mummy cannot hear him, or, if she can, shows no sign. Mrs Bingleburger has just won the chance to play for the showcase (worth, remember, $10,000).

Mummy lies semi-conscious on the carpet. As the theme music swells over the noise of the cheering audience, mummy's lips move briefly. "Glands, Chauncey, mammary glands."