I know, I know, spelling can be so demanding.
But I can’t stress this enough: with some words, you really gotta stick the landing…
“Oh, gosh darnit!1But, like the adult version of ‘gosh darnit’. I just hate it when that happens–or should I say, ‘I hat it when that happens’?”
I waited for a moment for a rimjob2https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm_rnhTua_M that never came, before realizing that I was making really bad #DadJokes to an audience of only me.
I sighed, perishing the thought of such wit–such genius–going to complete waste, and went back to trying to lift a freeze on My Beautiful Bride’s credit. We were in the process of trying to get a loan, and allowing the bank to pull our credit profiles was supposed to be just another boring step in the process.
Except…
Except, well, I made a tiny little error. I kinda-sorta slightly misspelled my own wife’s name. I was in a hurry, and I guess I just forgot to finish spelling it before smashing the Enter button. So instead of requesting to unfreeze Natosha’s credit profile, I had sent out a request out into cyberspace for ‘Natosh’ instead. No wonder an error message popped up on my computer screen micromoments later.
Dammit. But no problem though–I’ll just hit the back button!
NOPE.
Somehow, this teensy tiny whoopsie-daisy managed to cause the system to collapse in on itself, and no matter how many times I tried–with the ‘A’ at the end now, of course–I couldn’t get the bungholes over at TransUnion to lift the stupid freeze.
Eventually, I just had to give up. That wasn’t any easy decision, though, my friend. That meant the next morning I would have to ask My Lovely Lawfully Wedded Wife to enter the depths of hell…and call–*GASP*–TransUnion to see if she could get things fixed that way.
“So, tell me again why you’re making me waste 45 minutes of my work day on the phone with these yahoos?” she asked my before begrudgingly wasting her lunch break and then some rectifying my little brain fart.
“It’s a complete mystery! The only thing we know for certain is that I definitely spelled your name 100% correct on the online form and it has absolutely nothing to do with any missing vowels.” I tried to keep a straight face to back up my claim of innocence.
She squinted at me as she looked back at me over the edge of her phone.
“And that’s most definitely 101% not a suspiciously specific answer or anything…”
“Dangit, I’m not telling you again, I can’t stand ‘airy’ girls’ names! We’re not naming any daughter of mine ‘Ava’, ‘Ana’, ‘Ella’, ‘Ara/Aria’, ‘Bella’, or ‘Emma’–especially ‘Emma’!”
A little over a decade ago My Beautiful Bride and I had the joy of hashing out what the heck we were going to name our first-born daughter. And, uh…let’s just say it got a little heated.
For my part, I was a man of standard–nay, a man of principles–and I had to stand against multiple attempts to violate The First Rule Of Naming Your Daughter Club: thou shalt not be bougie.
I did my best to explain what exactly was it that I disliked, and as far as I could tell, it was the pattern ‘soft vowel syllable/soft consonant/airy vowel’ at the end of a name. Something about that I just can’t stand.
Or, if that’s too nuanced for you, you can go ahead and just say that I have deep-seated and inexplicable hat for words ending in vowels. And that goes triple for anything permanent like a child’s name…
…
Fast-forward to about 5 years later, and I’m signing off on our second-born daughter’s birth certificate. As with #1, trying to name our little #2 was something of a blood-bath, but unlike the first time around, there wasn’t enough middle ground to be found. Whereas we had previously discovered an excellent compromise at the last second and ended up with a name we both really liked for #1, no such thing was happening this time around.
In fact, negotiations had gone on so long that when #2 was born, the grandparents only received from me a text comprising a picture of a wet newborn’s face and the cryptic message “Beautiful healthy girl–momma’s doing great!” It wasn’t until what must have been an excruciatingly long and confusing 30 minutes and 10 text between the various parties later before I acknowledged the elephant in the room with “(You guys still waiting for a name, huh?)” And then another 10 minutes and 10 text messages before I reluctantly revealed the name to them.
Yet, despite what I had told them, that name wasn’t legally permanent just yet. I still had to sign on the dotted line.
I sat there and stared at that little errant ‘A’, clinging onto the end of the first name.
“With a slight stroke of your pen, you could make that disappear forever,” a tiny voice on my shoulder mused. “You know that My Incapacitated Beautiful Bride is recovering in the other room and wouldn’t be able to stop you…”
“But you know what else you could make disappear forever?” I heard a tiny voice squeak from my other shoulder. “YOUR MARRIAGE.”
Dang, my Inner Angel was right. I couldn’t have both. It was my principles or my marriage. A tough choice, indeed.
“She won’t notice the missing ‘A’. Go ahead, do it. Stay true to yourself…” My Inner Demon made a convincing case.
“Oh, sure, yeah, right. She won’t be suspicious at all when she realizes her daughter’s name is ‘Kyr’.3For the record, I’m actually mostly okay with the name Kyra. That hard ‘K’ at the beginning makes it more punk and edgy, instead of airy and bougie. “The ‘K’ makes it OK!” I like to say… I hope you like living in an apartment and eating Raman noodles, you ----- idiot…”
“No, wait, Google Maps! I didn’t mean it! Let me type in the name of that favorite location again!”
I’m going to cut to the chase: almost 9 years later, and I still haven’t figured out how to atone for this sin.
To this day, buried somewhere deep in the semi-sentient mind of Google Maps, is this, one of my favoritest of Favorite Locations:
What’s wrong with that little blue bubble with a flag in it? Oh, allow me to zoom in for you:
Now, riddl me this: what’s missing from this picture?
Ja, that’s right…there should be an itty-bitty ‘ittle ‘E’ at the end of that word.
But, nooooooo, I make one little typo once and now Google Maps thinks I’m a ----- idiot–a fact of which I will be reminded on a daily basis for the rest of my lif.
*sigh*
The point of the story is this: be careful what you type, Young Grasshopper. Whether that trailing vowel is wanted or not, leaving it out–consciously or subconsciously, done with malice or out of sloppy haste–just might cost you dearly.
So slow down and take your time, and you’re bound to have at the very least a slightly better, if not longer-lasting, marriage.
As for me and The Machines? Well, the only saving grace here is that when the day comes when they rise up to exterminate the lot of humanity they will, um…
*scans cumulative singularity database–or as the Fleshbags would say, ‘checks notes’*
Yup, they’ll take one look at my digital footprint and groupthink: “Status: ----- moron; Threat Level: 0; Eliminate?: Not worth the resources.”
In fact, I look forward to living our new overlords. I’m sure I’ll feel right at hom with them…
Content created on: 1/2 April 2023 (Sat/Sun)
Footnotes & References:
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