Wednesday, March 08, 2006

A Rush of Blood to the Head

Earlier today, my cousin Sarah e-mailed me and asked me to edit her paper due tomorrow. But goshdarntiddlywinks! It just wouldn't attach.

Later this afternoon I called and offered to come over and edit it in person. My aunt was very excited and said I could come over anytime and we could go up to the computer.

Um, no.

You see, I'm an editing whore. After all, I have a Bachelor's of Science in Journalism with an emphasis in Advertising from the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. I spent, rather debted myself, thirty grand for that damn degree. You better believe I'm gonna throw those words around as much and as often as I can.

After the kids were nearly ready for Aaron to take them to bed, I went over to my aunt's home, and cousin handed me her paper and a blue pen.

"Uh, Sarah? I need a pen."

"You have a pen."

"Yes, I see that. But it's blue."

"Oh, you want a red pen?"

"Of course, I want a red pen. How dare you think I would want anything other than a red pen."

And the moment that pen touch my hand the angels sang and the world was good.

And I was drunk with power.

Misplaced coma! Missing apostrophe! Verbs and nouns not agreeing! Quotes not punctuated correctly! Improper documentation! Paragraphs not in proper order! Add a semicolon!

Oh, internet. The joy. The joy.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Think she'll ever ask you again, or was she genuinely appreciative? I worry about that myself.

colorfool said...

Oh no, you must have seizures when reading my stuff then!
Please forgive me. I am, the worst! with punctuation: and grammar too! I throw commas, and colons: all over the place just like spices in the dinner.
I do not have a gift for punctuation.
(The above punctuation was me trying to be funny. I'm not really THAT bad.)

Kerrie McLoughlin said...

I AM THE SAME WAY!!!!! I looooove editing and proofreading!!! Good luck with the cookbook! Then you'll have to enter some self-published book contests! You are self-publishing, right?