American Hero Remembers to Use Correct Pronouns

By Mary Vansuch

April 20, 2014

University of Chicago freshmen  was bestowed a MacArthur Award last Monday for accomplishing a truly extraordinary task: using his friend Alex’s preferred gender pronoun, “they.” When asked to reveal the secret of his inner strength, Todd said, “Um, it really wasn’t that hard. I use singular ‘they’ half of the time anyway, like most people, so it only took making a half second pause for a week or so. Since it’s important to Alex, I figured I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I at least didn’t make some effort, and now it’s just natural. I’m confused about how you find this remarkable.”

Todd continues to accumulate accolades for his amazing accomplishments. There has been buzz on the blogosphere about Todd receiving an Academy Award for so effectively portraying the role of a “Decent Human Being” who accomplishes the extraordinary feat of “extending small and simple gestures on behalf of his loved ones to respect their basic human dignity.”

Barack Obama and John Boehner are reportedly in the mist of organizing a duel to the death to determine who wins the right to award Todd with either a Congressional Gold Medal or a Medal of Freedom. Said Obama, “I gotta get me some of that advancing human rights goodness. I can’t believe I didn’t think of pulling off a Todd ages ago. Using ‘they.’ That’s great!” Boehner countered, “People forget that Republicans want to be decent friends too. Patriot Todd deserves a medal for accomplishing what so few of us can: using ‘they’ when politely asked to. Wow. I’m speechless when confronted with such good old-fashioned American courage.” Asked for comment on the impending duel, Todd gave The Dealer a blank stare. “I’m flattered, but I haven’t really done anything beyond use a pronoun. Aren’t there people trying to cure AIDS or something?” If he only knew how truly extraordinary he was.