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January 10, 2006
old salty
Today I was quite literally faced with a boob conundrum. The Bean and I were at the pediatrician’s office getting a belated though hopefully still effective flu shot. In the waiting room with us was a full-figured teenage fly-girl with a tiny baby. When the girl rose to bring the baby into the doctor, her gigantic mama mias, already busting out of her tight V-neck t-shirt, somehow spilled up and out of her shirt entirely and exposed her right baby feeder to the waiting room. She was so exhausted she didn't notice and gave me such a sweet, tired smile as she passed me that I wanted to grab her and say, “Excuse me young miss, your shoshana is out and about, there!” but I didn’t. How would one even tactfully do that? So I just smiled back and let her pass, flesh flag a-flying.
In retrospect, I guess it probably doesn’t matter since she’ll likely be sticking her Sister Christians into the kid’s maw about 12,000 times a day soon enough, general public be damned.
In other, non-boob related news (although, is there really any other kind worth noting?) for about fifteen years or so, I’ve been ending most of my sentences with an extemporaneous little flourish of punctuation that I like to call a period. Then, as a reflex, I hit “space space”. Twice. Two spaces. Along comes the new tech writer guy at work, who is working with me on a project. The guy and I are like the oil and vinegar of writing. Whereas I am all yammer yammer yammer adverbs misspelling fluff fluff!! He is like “Communication. Is. Useful.” He’s a great asset to the project in many ways, but he rocked my world by sending me some edits that I um, disagreed with (“I see you are attempting humor here. Please note that humor cannot be quantified.”) He also broke the news that apparently since the time the dominatrix who taught my ninth grade typing class lorded over her collection of Underwoods, some rules have changed. Specifically: the kids aren’t using two spaces anymore after a period. They are using one.
Telling me to start using one space instead of two after all these years is like asking someone to suddenly begin exhaling twice before inhaling once. I think I might have earned a little salt in my shaker over this one, since I was like ”You don’t say,” with audible nose whistling, tea slurping, bone creaking, and little or no intention of changing my ways. Call me a codger – I don’t care. Some habits are too hard to break, by gum.
Posted by Max at January 10, 2006 10:58 PM
Comments
I'm sure you'll eventually get around to disbarring me from posting comments here, but there's still plenty of life in two spaces after a period, especially among professional writers—monospace manuscripts generally require it, and there are cases where two spaces makes more sense, as suggested here: http://www.evolt.org/article/Two_Spaces_After_a_Period_Isn_t_Dead_Yet/25/213/
But yeah, if you (and I) learned to type on a typewriter, chances are you (and I) have codger status.[space][space]
Posted by: Eric at January 12, 2006 10:02 AM
I'm a two-spacer, myself, and I'm a writer by trade. I just can't stop. I find that some programs take it out automatically for me.
Posted by: Jenny at January 17, 2006 03:00 PM
The only comments I'm disbarring are the ones from people wanting to sell me steroids and Viagra. They must not know who my husband is.
Glad there are other double-space geezers out there!
Posted by: max at January 18, 2006 10:33 AM