This Just In: News That Stays News

RANDOM QUOTATION MARKS PUZZLE WOMAN’S DAUGHTER, SON-IN-LAW

New Haven, Connecticut—James and Laura Williams, who had planned to spend their fifth wedding anniversary over champagne and filet mignon at The Top of the Park Restaurant, spent it at home instead, puzzling over Laura’s mother’s anniversary card.

Interviewed at her modest home on Edgewood Avenue, Laura Williams sat at her kitchen table flipping the card open and closed; each time, a troubled expression clouded her features. “On the face of it, it seems normal enough,” said Laura Williams. “It’s a standard Hallmark Card, embossed roses, a lovely, if a little too sentimental message.”

What troubled Mrs. Williams, who celebrated her wedding anniversary on October 25th, was the inscription. “Happy ‘Anniversary,’” her mother had written. She signed the card “’Love,’ Your ‘Mother.’”

“We didn’t know how to read it,” said a clearly upset Mrs. Williams. “’Anniversary’ and ’Love’ in quotation marks? What is that? Is she being ironic? Is she insinuating that it’s not really our anniversary? Is she quoting someone?”

Mrs. Williams was most disturbed, though, by the quotations around the word Mother. “Does this mean she is not really my mother? I know I don’t look much like her—she’s blonde and my hair is jet-black--but this is one hell of a time to raise the issue of parentage. I’m thirty five years old!”

Laura Williams’ mother, Mrs. Janet Oliver, was not reachable by phone, but intsead sent a note that read, “My ‘daughter’ can be so ‘emotional.’ I hope your ‘article’ helps to ‘settle her down.’” Complicating matters further, the note was signed “’Sincerely,’ Mrs. Janet Oliver.”