MELLIPOP AND THE TESTAMUR

OK, so through six prolonged years of sheer bloody-minded apathy I’ve managed to destroy the most expensive piece of paper – nay – the most expensive single material item I own.

And I can’t even blame the demon dogs for this one.

So I pulled my university degree out today. I was actually looking for my complete academic transcript, which was stored with the illustrious piece of shoddy laser-printed paper that passes for a degree these days. If I’d known before I’d enrolled just how shoddy a document it was going to be, I would have forgone the five years and countless thousands of dollars and hours it cost to achieve, and would have just whipped something up in Photoshop instead.

Anyway, so my degree and transcripts were still stored in the original plastic folder they were handed to me in. Also contained in the plastic folder with my expensive pieces of paper was another, less expensive yellow slip of paper (photocopied, ironically), still there after six years.

A short extract from the yellow piece of paper reads:

STORAGE OF DEGREE/DIPLOMAS

“The enclosed degree/diploma testamur is produced on a laser printer. Do not store your testamur on a long term basis in this plastic folder as damage may occur….It is recommended that your testamur be framed and hung in a dry environment”

Besides wondering what the fuck a “testamur” is when it’s at home, I also wondered who the fuck takes notice of warnings like that anyway. “Dry clean only”, “Hand wash in warm water”, “This medication may cause drowsiness - do not operate heavy machinery”, “Smoking will kill you”.

P’fff…. whatever....

I mean, to reiterate, what the fuck is a “testamur”? I looked it up in the Macquarie Dictionary and the goddamn word isn’t even in there! It goes straight from “testament” to “testes” with nary a “testamur” in sight. Testify!

But get this, right....

MY DEGREE COMES FROM MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY.

THE SAME UNIVERSITY THAT PRODUCES THE MACQUARIE DICTIONARY.

THE SAME UNIVERSITY THAT ISSUES ME WITH A WARNING TO TAKE GOOD CARE OF MY “TESTAMUR”.

THE SAME UNIVERSITY THAT DOESN'T EVEN SEE FIT TO INCLUDE THE WORD "TESTAMUR" IN IT'S OWN FUCKING DICTIONARY!

So how am I expected to take a warning that contains a word that DOESN’T EVEN EXIST seriously? How was I to know that the “testamur” I wasn’t supposed to store in the plastic folder was actually my fucking shoddy laser printed degree.

Ok, so I kind of guessed it wasn’t a good idea to keep my degree in the plastic wallet. The text has now come off onto the back of my academic transcripts, which were stored in front of it, resulting in a very tragic “double vision” type effect.

Yeah, so my degree is totally fucked now. But that yellow slip of photocopied paper is in as pristine a condition as the day I got it. Hell, I might just frame it.