Shannon of Eightcrazy Designs has done a great job of taking my vague ideas and turning them into reality! I wanted to keep my basic colours but jazz the whole thing up a little.
It'll keep me up a LOT LESS at night than a tiny de Elba will, anyway!
SMJ: "There's poo in my room."The use of the word "slopped" did it for me. I was up.
Me (wrenched from deep sleep): "Mmph, womphle, WHA-?"
SMJ: "There's poo in my room."
Me: "Err, you mean in your nappy?"
SMJ: "Yeah. And poo in my room."
Me (in denial): "Ah, good, so just in your nappy then?"
SMJ: "There's poo in my nappy. And it tumbled out of my nappy, slopped down my leg and slopped on my carpet."
Not completely, it turns out.
It hasn't settled quite enough yet and there's now nothing I can do about the horror that is about to unfold in our street. I can't get the excess out into bags without the same amount of mess that the garbage truck will soon be making.
The giant bin liner doesn't meet at the top so I can't tie it up and contain the beans. I had to balance the sides of the flimsy plastic liner on top of the fluffy mass of spilling beans and gently hold the bin lid down while I gingerly wheeled the whole thing to the kerb.
It sits there now surrounded by a light snowfall of beans, waiting for the council garbage truck to roughly grab it, hurl it high into the air, give it a brutal shake and violently dump it back down on the ground.
Something tells me that in a few hours, there will be snowdrifts you could ski on.
Is "instore" correct? I don't think it would bother me if it read "Instore optometrist," as the word "instore" is used as an adjective. But they created a prepositional phrase which should, I think, read "Optometrist In Store."
But really, I didn't care. I started wondering why it didn't bother me.
I know that there is a place called Pedantville. It is a place where each and every little spelling, grammar and punctuation error is exhibited and mocked by the entire population of Pedantland.
But I personally find the inhabitants of Nonpedantsburg are much nicer people in general, they focus their time and energy on important issues rather than tearing down the reputation of people making errors in written expression. They are also much more numerous.
Conversation with a Nonpedant flows nicely. But when you're talking to a Pedant, an interesting conversation can easily be derailed.
You: I just don't seem to think as quick as I used to.
Pedant: Quick-LY. (Awkward pause) It's an adverb.
You: Uh ... I -er- sorry, I lost my train of thought. I guess I just don't think as ... My mind isn't as ... um, oh is that the time? I really must run...
Or this:
You: None of the boys are coming today.
Pedant: None IS.
You: Wha-?
Pedant: None IS. "Each, every, either, neither and none are singular and require a singular verb." What, your school didn't teach you that?
You: (smack Pedant across the face.)
I used to be that pedant in conversations. Now I care more about the person I'm talking to than the correctness of the conversation.
Which one are you? To find out, take this quick quiz:
Question One:
Spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors on Killing A Fly have, in the past:
(a) completely passed me by
(b) jumped out at me, but I didn't feel the need to do anything about them
(c) bothered me for days, even weeks, and it's been hard not to crucify Givinya in the Comments.
Question Two:
The spelling of the word "graffitied" or the use of "grammar" vs. "grammatical" above:
(a) could be right, could be wrong. I couldn't care less.
(b) has had me wondering since I read those paragraphs.
(c) had raised my blood pressure and heart rate. I googled them, looked at Dictionary.com and then phoned three geeky friends to discuss them.
Question Three:
Givinya's conversational writing style:
(a) is great - it makes me feel like I'm in a comfy armchair across from her listening to her rambling on
(b) is probably acceptable, given that it's 2008 and yes *sigh* times change.
(c) completely does my head in. I have a blood splatter on my wall from where I've hit my forehead due to her maddening propensity to blatantly split infinitives and choose awkward words to end sentences with. ARGHH! Now I'm doing it myself!
What's your score?
Mostly "a"s - You're from Nonpedantsburg, and you're always welcome at Killing A Fly. Your spelling, grammar and punctuation isn't that crash-hot, so I think we'll get along just fine!
Mostly "b"s - Another Nonpedant. You and I both pick up those errors, my friend. But please put a lid on it: I kept them there for a reason. Maybe I needed the post to read like that, maybe I wanted to preserve a conversational tone and decided to start that sentence with "And" or maybe I just don't care. If I lose my internet connection more than once while I'm trying to get back into the post to edit it, I'll just leave the error there. Meh.
Mostly "c"s - Look, I don't think you or I will get along all that well. You may consider giving up your daily dose of Killing A Fly and decide to go and read a dictionary instead. I'm not interested in being dragged into the arena of your grammatical prowess in order to have mine savaged to death. (Not that anyone has actually done this before, I'm just saying.)
A friend of mine used to say to pedants, "You're so Pedontic!"
The pedant would be unable to restrain themselves from correcting, "Pedantic!"
...to which my friend would say, "Ah! Gotcha."
Too clever.
I just read your ENTIRE bingo-related post waiting for the bit when the Two Fat Ladies came into the picture. Seriously. When you got to the part about camp, I was all "aha, so they're doing a Bad British Food theme night and will go riding in an old motorcycle with a sidecar..."Which sounds like top-notch comedy to me, Heather, and I love it! Camp could certainly do with some Jennifer and Clarissa stirring cigarette ash into the artichokes!
But don’t let that make you scratch all day!
Oh who am I kidding, as we started winning the war against them, I too had a major problem with psychological bed bugs. It was difficult to determine if we had made progress killing every last one because I felt my report of "I think I’ve been bitten, I’m itchy all over" became very unreliable as my mind conjured bugs and bites that didn't exist. I have read that this pest, above all others, is the one that will have a homeowner in tears when the Pest Control Officer arrives to treat the dwelling. In all seriousness, this is too terribly true. The violation of your body (they squirt an anaesthetic and and anti-coagulant into you, then suck your blood leaving you itchy and spotty) and the apparent hopelessness of so many attempts to control them can make you so depressed and apathetic.
But you liked the post and enjoyed my inexpertly-photoshopped creations, and for that, I thank you.
Many of you had suggestions for other items in the Parasite Wear range, including various items of clothing emblazoned with ringworm, tapeworm, duck itch, flesh-eating bacteria, mosquitoes, stomach viruses, the 'flu, streptococcus, scabies, toe jam, belly button boogers, chicken pox and Lyme disease.
I loved the suggestion for "Spider Egg Sac" earrings, with tiny baby spiders hatching and crawling down the side. The idea for a pyjama set with the words "I'm infectious, stay away!" was an interesting (but perhaps more effective?) twist on "Honey, I have a headache tonight." And yes you’re right, the intestinal worms could have been moved down a bit lower on the pyjama top so they could be more anatomically correct.
Thanks for making my SITS day so exciting and memorable! It's someone else's turn now...
I was relieved to hear that all around the world, people are sustaining Handtowel Injuries similar to mine, along with:
But my favourite comment was trashalou's. I never expected someone to say, "Oh nipple scissors? We've all been there......"
I'll have a look through the comments on my other two featured posts soon, and give you a roundup of those!
Smoochy Girl loved the horse-riding.
A rare moment when both the girls were clean. We didn't dress them to match. It was a coincidence, and gave us a bit of a fright to see we'd done it.
We spent some time at the "water park" which is for boating, not waterslides, in case you were wondering about the mud and lack of -er- waterslides ...
... which was all good clean twinkly early-morning fun ...
... until it all ended, inevitably, in ...
MESS.