All of my conversational dialogue writing for the ESL books is now done (at least for the book they’re working on at the moment). I have badgered many of you about certain subjects over the past couple months. I appreciate all the help. Here are two samples of the final results.

JUNIOR: Dad, they have an awesome webcam at London Drugs, will you get it for me?
DAD: How about you buy it yourself?
JUNIOR: Duh, ’cause I don’t have any money!
DAD: You should start saving up your allowance in case your mother and I get hit by a meteor.
JUNIOR: If a meteor kills you I’ll inherit the house.
DAD: You’re free to take the house as long as you don’t mind the meteor holes. What have you been spending all your allowance on?
JUNIOR: Stuff.
DAD: Crack cocaine?
JUNIOR: Come on Dad, be serious.
DAD: What do you want a webcam for? Nevermind, I don’t want to know. I’ll start buying you webcams as soon as you learn how to fix my car.
JUNIOR: How about a raise, then?
DAD: Is it your birthday already and nobody told me?
JUNIOR: No but I deserve a raise. Tommy Fielding gets twice as much I do.
DAD: You better start buttering him up since you’re more likely to get the cash from him than from me. You know when I was a boy I didn’t get any allowance at all.
JUNIOR: Yeah and you had to walk two hundred miles to school in the snow, and you ate newspapers for breakfast. I know. Welcome to the 21st century, Dad.
DAD: You know you’re awfully snippy for a kid who’s begging for money.
JUNIOR: Come on….I’ve been doing all my chores, and my grades are up. Won’t you at least loan me the money?
DAD: Oh, I guess so. I’ll give you a loan even though you don’t deserve it. You can pay it back with your allowance.
JUNIOR: Thanks, Dad!
DAD: Wait a minute, how much is this webcam?
JUNIOR: $149.99
DAD: Sweet merciful Christmas!!!

LUCAS: Augh! I’m so mad at the public library.
ANGELA: You can’t be mad at a public institution.
LUCAS: I can and I will!
ANGELA: Why mad?
LUCAS: They wouldn’t let me check out any books because I had borrowed some book on samurai in 1997 and brought it back late.
ANGELA: How late?
LUCAS: Twenty-three dollars in overdue fines late, that’s how late.
ANGELA: Then maybe it’s time to pay the $23?
LUCAS: Maybe it’s time to burn the damn thing to the ground.
ANGELA: You could go to another library.
LUCAS: They’re all connected, you know? They’re all branches of the same big library. It’s like the cola wars – both Pepsi and Coke are owned by the same company.
ANGELA: I don’t know if that’s true. In any case, there are a billion libraries.
LUCAS: A billion? A billion? Your unabashed hyperbole only makes me angrier! I thought that there was a statute of limitations on late fees. Don’t they go away after five years?
ANGELA: Nope, they are like hepatitis C – it stays with you forever.
LUCAS: Except you can’t pay $23 to get rid of hep C therefore you’re metaphor sucks.
ANGELA: Be that as it may, the libraries in the suburbs are not affiliated with the city library. You just need to leave the city.
LUCAS: Hmmm, I could avoid the late fines however that would mean taking the transit out to the ‘burbs. I don’t know which is worse.
ANGELA: Yeah life is tough. Still, you only have yourself to blame for not returning your samurai book on time. Perhaps some ritual suicide is in order?
LUCAS: Very funny.