I'm Not That Kind of Girl

I think about fanny packs a lot. They're genius, right? A fanny pack would be perfect for one of those nights at the bar that seems like it’s going to be totally chill, but then everyone has a little too much to drink and there’s really good music playing on the jukebox and all of a sudden it turns into an awesome dance party. You want to dance, but it’s hard to really get down while carrying your purse because it keeps sliding down your arm. So you put your purse on the bar stool, but then you can’t really get down because you keep checking on your purse. 

I feel like I should get over myself and get one. I mean, we all should if we’re honest with ourselves. But I know I never will. I just don’t see myself as the kind of girl who wears a fanny pack. They got such a stigma back in the 80’s; I just can’t. 

 

In a similar vein, I won’t use emoticons. The longer they’re around and the more I email and text, the more I realize that they really do help convey the appropriate tone. But I just don’t see myself as the kind of girl who uses emoticons. 

What I use instead of a smiley face is the exclamation point. That perky little punctuation mark does to a sentence what an umbrella does to a cocktail: makes it impossible to take that seriously. When I want to convey a lighthearted tone, I simply place an exclamation point after my sentence.

I thought I was the inventor of using the punctuation mark for tone, but I was wrong. I just read an article that claims that ending a sentence with a period in a text message does to a sentence what red does to a bull: makes it angry. The article says, “I’ve noticed it in my text messages and online chats, where people use the period not simply to conclude a sentence, but to announce ‘I am not happy about the sentence I just concluded.’”

Is punctuation as tone setter a new trend? Does that question mark I just used simply indicate that I just wrote an interrogative sentence, or does it mean that the sentence reveals that I am emotionally confused? If I use a comma, does that mean that I'm feeling hesitant?

What tone does a semicolon convey?

Crime against Grammar

It was 8am, and I heard my door bell ring. I would love to say I had been up for an hour and was just finishing the last ten minutes of my Thigh Master routine, but the truth is I was fast asleep. I’ve been sleeping in a lot lately—like for the past thirty plus years. 

The door bell had been rung by the maintenance guy at my apartment complex. He told me that someone had hit my car and shattered my tail light. It was a hit and run!

Who could it have been? Who would shatter the tail light of a poor, innocent grammarmobile in the dead of night and just take off?  It had to be someone who hates grammar.

So I did some investigating, and I came across an article about the celebrities with the worst grammar on Twitter.

I narrowed it down, and I came to the conclusion that it must have been Jessica Alba. 

She has always been jealous of my looks.