Phun Wif Wordz!!!

Any teacher who comes into contact with student writing is routinely treated to new and exciting ways to brutalize our poor language. I realize that the academy offers merely one style of communication and that my job is, in no small part, rather an exercise in helping these neophytes code switch. That said, a number of these students have the English language cast down in a well, filthy and scared, and are threatening it with the hose if it doesn't put the lotion in the basket. Which, come to think of it, kinda makes me Clarice in this little metaphor, which in turns ends with me being stalked by students wearing night vision goggles in a pitch-black meth den...and then I shoot them? With....knowledge?

While I stare aghast at the tattered remnants of my unraveled metaphor encircling my feet, console yourself with the fact that this post isn't about freshman composition. Rather, it's about adventures in reading, or to be more precise, adventures in reading others' mistakes.

Exhibit A:


And to think the man from Galilee would take the time to ensure my dinner was served delicious, hot, and in a timely manner. I've been told all my life that Jesus loves me (well, all of us, actually - except Spencer of Hills fame, loathed of God, who is clearly an emissary of Satan), but I didn't know it was in a "Mom making sure you've had a good meal" sort of way. Of course, his last act with all his disciples together was a supper, so I suppose I shouldn't have let that one sneak up on me. Of course, in retrospect, I maybe should have become a little more suspicious when the delivery guy told me that visiting that one internet site was most definitely a sin. You know...the one Greg's on.

That, however, was merely the appetizer, my friends. Allow me to pull back my (faux) silver tray cover in a dramatic fashion to reveal your main course:


I had this little gem waiting for me on the wall outside my office when I got to campus Tuesday morning. My eyes lit up as they did when I charged into the living room on Christmas morning so many years ago, and just like that beloved holiday ritual, I wasn't quite sure I'd been a good enough boy all year to deserve this. In their defense, there's no false advertising at play here; ever since we determined keeping an attack monkey in the Writing Center was a violation of virtually every University health statute (even after we took back the knife and gave that vicious simian a week to let the Wild Turkey leech out of its system), there have been only human breasts in and around the University Writing Program. Of course, I can't speak for the Creative Writing department.

If I were compelled to glean some sort of lesson from all this, I suppose it would be this: if you're going to commit something to print, make sure it says what the hell you want it to say. Otherwise you're going to look like a jackoff, and nobody wants that.

Wait...who the hell is Hannibal Lector then?