It’s the way you put it …
My uncle Jakob has worked many jobs in his life besides his respectable career with the United Nations Centre for Human Rights and as a judge in the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has been a farmer, a schoolteacher, a freelancing columnist, published a book of parodic poetry; all sorts of things.
One of these jobs, long ago, involved writing the responses to “Bréf til Vikunnar,” a Dear-Abby-type personal advice column in an Icelandic weekly called “Vikan” (The Week).
Jakob told me of one letter written by a couple who were in anguish about their collapsing domestic situation: they could not sleep because they had an infant who never slept and cried constantly — for fear of the family cat. The cat was very dear to the couple and all that, and the lack of sleep was driving them bonkers; they were at the end of their tether. What could they do?
His response: “Have you considered getting rid of the baby?”
That marked the end of Jakob’s work on “Bréf til Vikunnar.”