Just wanted to share a little chuckle I had to myself the other day:
I was following a beaten up old car on my way to the supermarket that was plastered in edgy stickers like
“SH*T HAPPENS”
“LIFE’S GOOD - YOU SHOULD GET ONE”
“HONK IF A KID FALLS OUT”
I’m not shocked by bad language or offensive jokes, so I don’t have a problem with what people put on their cars, but the last one really got me:
“YOUR OFFENDED BY WHAT I SAY? THAT’S WHY I’M HAPPIER THAN YOU!”
I was offended.
I was deeply fecking offended.
The poor punctuation on that bumper sticker gave me The Absolute Rage!
I know I’m not perfect with my use of language. We all slip up from time to time (well, most of us do) or autocorrect will put the wrong version of a word in when we’re typing quickly, but I get deeply annoyed when people who design signs and stickers don’t go to the trouble of checking their spelling, punctuation and grammar before displaying their abominations in public.
They have one bloody job after all!
Kev is quite the opposite of me in this respect. By his own admission, he pissed about in English classes and makes many mistakes but he says, “If you understand what I mean, then what’s the problem?” (He would probably spell “what’s” without the apostrophe”)
Sometimes, it makes me want to marry him just so I can divorce him about it, but deep down I know he has a point.
Spelling, grammar and punctuation rage is a real thing brought on, I believe, by over-zealous teachers ramming rules down our throats from an early age. I’m not complaining about such individuals by the way. They are faithful guardians of our language.
However, I was struck by the truth of the sticker, even though it probably wasn’t aimed at apostrophe spotters.
When we get offended by other people’s actions, we only hurt ourselves. They’re probably perfectly happy and aren’t giving our pain or frustration a second thought.
I’m always banging on about how we need to protect our emotions around the actions of others, but there I was getting genuinely hacked off at the lack of care and attention given to a crappy bumper sticker on a stranger’s car.
Maybe it’s my final frontier of personal development.
Maybe I should force myself to go into online forums and expose myself to dreadful punctuation with the aim of keeping my heart rate below 120 bpm.
Is there anything you still need to let go of? Anything you hurt only yourself with?
Keep an eye out for such times and have a little word with yourself - your be happier for it.