Dude, Where Have You Been All My Life?

In a brief break from my current cleavage obsession, I’ve found someone who I fancy. Or shall I day whom I fancy?

It’s none other than Jeff Deck, the dude from the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) who travels the country correcting errors on government signs with white-out.




TEAL’s mission statement: We do not blame, nor chastise, the authors of these typos. It is natural for mistakes to occur; everybody will slip now and again. But slowly the once-unassailable foundations of spelling are crumbling, and the time has come for the crisis to be addressed.

Hallelujah!


Recently Deck was sentenced to a year of probation for defacing a hand-painted sign at the Grand Canyon and is now banned from the national parks.



That got me to thinking. Maybe while he's taking time off, Deck could volunteer to remedy other language issues.

For starters, how about these babies:




Credit Card disclosure statements are riddled with mistakes. Take this sentence:

Any holder of this consumer credit contract is subject to all claims and defenses which the debtor could assert against the seller of goods or services obtained pursuant hereto or with the proceeds hereof.

Now even I know you’re not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition.

And hereof is a preposition. And so is the word hereunder in the sentence that follows.

Or at least I think hereunder is a word. But I admit I don't know what hereunder means.

In fact, I don’t get the whole frickin’ thing.


And this one throws me every time:

OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR




I swear I don’t know understand this. I think Deck should rewrite this so I know whether the semi that's about to pass me is close enough to view my cleavage in the mirror or in real life.


And whenever I go to vote my brain hurts. Like with this provision in the MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW:


A primary caregiver who receives compensation for actual
expenses, including reasonable compensation incurred for services
provided to an eligible qualified patient or person with an
identification card to enable that person to use marijuana under this
article, or for payment for out-of-pocket expenses incurred in
providing those services, or both, shall not, on the sole basis of
that fact, be subject to prosecution or punishment under Section
11359 or 11360.




Are they trying to say that if you’re dealing to a guy with glaucoma, you won’t get busted?

Seriously, what gives? I think Deck needs switch over to paraphrasing. What's the point of correcting spelling and grammar when the whole texts read like you've been smoking medical marijuana.

If Deck does still want to continue to leave his mark on private and public signs, I have a suggestion:

Instead of defacing them, why not stick a Post-It note on them with this stamp?



That way, you’ve made your point and don’t risk being booted away from Old Faithful and the like.

Anyway, Jeff, I respect what you're doing. And the arrest only confirms that you're my typo. Call me.


BTW, Jeff, you're not really correcting typos. You're correcting stupid-ass mistakes, so that whole mission statement makes no sense really. Start there.


For all kinds of different typos, check out Humor-Blogs where you can VOTE for this post and others.

In Which Teen Learns About Cleavage

In my best French, and by French I mean English in an Inspector Clouseau accent, I said goodbye to Sacha our exchange student. Despite numerous failed outings—the beach with the nuclear power plant on the shore, the Celtic rock concert where he plugged his ears, the blues festival where he sat out in the rain--in the end Sacha’s visit was saved by laser tag, aka Laser Skirmish in Australian.

Yes, in the end we bonded over infrared simulations of combat.



Anyway, I was sad to see Sacha go—for that meant my family would no longer put their best feet forward. Blows over watching Sponge Bob or Zoey 101 would return, with the Ten-Year Old Boy vying for Zoey.

But I digress.

Conventional wisdom would lead you to think that after three weeks of playing tour guide for a French teen, I could relax. But no. Because we are taking another family vacation.

If any of you in the blogosphere recall that oxymoron of a family vacation I went on a mere few weeks ago, you’d think I am a glutton for punishment. A term which probably has a much hipper synonym in the Urban Dictionary .

But what about the cleavage, you ask. How far down do I have to scan this freakin’ blog to get to the cleavage?

Stay with me.

OK. So Sacha leaves. We pack the car (five painful hours, but that’s another story). We are traveling on the turnpike. I’m driving.

In a rare moment of quiet after Daughter and Ten-Year Old stop fighting about Mario games, Teen Son who is actually reading a book calls out, “Hey, Dad, what’s cleavage?”

Without hesitation my eBayer says, “cleavage is the crease between a woman’s breasts that shows in their tops. Like the ones your mother is always wearing.”

No response.

A few minutes go by and Teen abandons his book.

“Why did you stop reading?” I inquire.

“I can’t understand this book,” Teen says, frustrated. “Dad told me what cleavage is but it’s still doesn’t make any sense.”

Then it occurs to me where the confusion comes from. Teen is reading The Education of Little Tree. It’s a memoir of a Scottish-Cherokee boy growing up in the 30s in remote mountain hollows. Cleavage in this case probably means a separation or a cleft.



Which is unlike the cleavage showing in the tops that Teen’s mother is always wearing.



And unlike the celebrity cleavage found on Extremely Funny’s blog. Cleavage like this:



I don’t know what the term for cleavage is in the Urban Dictionary or even Australian. But I think Teen’s got it now.


******


IF YOU HAVEN'T ENTERED MY CAPTION CONTEST THERE'S STILL TIME. I'M ON A FAMILY VACATION, which tends to increase alcohol consumption. So I'm not sure I'll be capable of making a decent decision any time soon. (And if you feel like, leave a caption for that hideous picture of me and my cleavage.)

Vote for this post at Humor-Blogs where there is plenty of the good kind of cleavage.

My Husband Went on the Stone Brewery Tour and All I Got Was a Stupid T-Shirt

And the pleasure of taking six kids to Mission Beach. That’s right. We’re visiting MY friend in San Diego. MY friend who I haven’t seen in 8 months since she's moved. MY friend who I have a desperate need to talk to. MY friend who has a desperate need to talk to me.

And the guys take off.



And for those who know me, when it comes to beer or baseball the beach, I will choose beer.

Which, to be truthful is what I did. Because MY friend likes to drink. And she's as relaxed as I am about leaving her kids to swim in front of the lifeguard. So we go to a café and order drinks and guacamole. And more drinks.

And we don’t care when the kids crowd around the Monster Energy Truck like vultures for free cans of the stuff.



We don’t care if it has caffeine in it. We don't even care if it has alcohol in it.




Because now everyone is happy.

To keep me happy, check out Humor-Blogs. For more vacation folly, scroll down.