The importance of the exclamation point key!

The exclamation point key on my computer keyboard died.   It just stopped working.  It threw in the towel and left me hanging there…on my own…with no other emphasis adding backups.  At first I was upset—and quite frankly a little lost.  But as I thought about it a little bit, I realized that some self-introspection was necessary. 

It has been said that I often tend to embellish the stories I tell.  To me it’s all in the realm of my artistic scope.  I paint the picture with the brightest colors using full hand motions and every tone my voice can produce.  Each listener comes on the story train with me experiencing all the bumps and turns as I originally felt them.  And when the story ends we laugh, we cry, and we all can’t wait for the next one to begin.  Ok—that may be a stretch—but you get the idea.  I’m not changing the truths—I’m just making them more exciting to listen to.  So what does this have to do with my exclamation point key calling it quit? Everything.

I spend the larger part of my workday on the computer emailing back and forth with clients across the nation.  Which means they are getting to know me through the written word.  They can’t see my hands raised above my head in surrender or hear my voice getting louder and louder through the computer screen.  So I’m left with only a few options.  I CAN TYPE IN ALL CAPS TO MAKE IT APPEAR THAT I’M ANGRY. or i can type in all lowercase with grammaticale errors and make it seem like i dont now what im doing.  But either way the use of the exclamation point is necessary.  I can use it to show that I am soooooo excited about the new proposal!! YEAH!!!!!!  (And in this case multiple uses are necessary.)  Or it can be used to show intensity about NEEDING THE CONTRACT TODAY! (In this case the combined usage of caps and exclamation is extremely effective.)  But sometimes it just gets used to show nothing more than a little bit of embellishment—think of it as adding that “extra” umph to the email. (A good way to start the email is  “Hey!”—it’s not necessary but starts right away with a burst of intensity.)

Now by this point you are probably thinking that I’m nuts—and justifiably so.  But I have always had this overuse of the exclamation point problem.  In fact in college I had a professor write on one of my papers, “You only get to use the exclamation point three times in your writing career—and you used them all in the first paragraph!”  Apparently I didn’t learn from that comment at all; surprisingly enough I did pass his class.  So where does that leave me now?  I spent the whole day exclamation pointless.  For some reason my IT guy didn’t think that my problem was an emergency (why it took a backseat to fixing the glitch on the mainframe server I will never know). It was a sad day.  I tried to invent other ways of showing a little personality and found that the colon/bracket smiley faces always do the trick :).  You can have them wink ;), smile :o), stick out a tongue :op, frown L and pull so many other faces I have yet to figure out.  I also invoked the texter lingo inside me.  I was LOLing all day long. 

This experience should have been good for me.  It helped me go outside my normal exclamation zone and find other avenues to express myself.  And yet I was still tormenting our IT guy with fix it request.  One day turned into two, and three and four.  And at that point I was starting to get used to the lack of the little line with a dot under it.  I was starting to manage.  Then the unthinkable happened…my parenthesis key keeled over.  No longer could I create a little happy face at the end of my sentence.  That was the last straw. I can not type the things that came next-- they are best left to your imagination (for my reputation's sake anyway).

Days later here I am: back in the land of written expression—with all of my punctuation keys intact. Happy day! J  

Things you find at a library...

Books right?  That's what you expect to find at a library-- I know it's stating the obvious.  And when I went last week that is exactly what I found-- which was good for me (one who is a lover of the written word).  So I checked out a few and was on my merry way.  At this point I have to add that I love that libraries have self checkout.  It's so wonderful.  All those years of playing the grocery store clerk have paid off.  I can go up and scan my card-- hear the beep and reminisce on the good times I had checking out fake food across a plastic scanner.  Some genius has figured out how to do this with books now-- only books don't have a barcode.  All I have to do is slide my book across the counter.  I'm not exactly sure how it works but my book registers  and after a few taps on the screen I'm clear to go.  My childhood dream of being a cashier at a grocery store fulfilled without having to live out that actual back breaking reality.  Of course I always fear just a bit when I walk through those big security gates: "What if I did it wrong and missed a book?" and "Was I really qualified to check myself out?" but mostly "If this thing goes off in a library can you imagine how loud and distracting it's going to be?".  Of course I've never stolen a library book, so I don't know why I let my heart race and the sweat beads pile up as I step through the security gates.  And when I really stop and think about it-- what is going to happen if the alarm does go off?  Is one of the quiet little librarians going to come and freak out on me? Probably not.  But what is great about this whole situation is that even the little moment of fear cannot erase my prior bliss of self checkout.  What does put me in a little quandary is when I finally get outside to my car. 

When going to the library there are a few things that I might expect to hit when driving in the parking lot.  I have polled my friends and they agree that this list is a good representation of those items:

1. Kids

2. Old people 

3. A dropped book

4. Another car

But that's about all we have collectively come up with that makes sense.  So much to my surprise what did I come close to hitting as I backed up???

A CHICKEN!!!!

What is that?  Where do I live?  I am in California right?  So weird. It's not like I live in the sticks.  I know that Folsom isn't the biggest city ever, but we are part of Sacramento county-- which is California's capitol.  Doesn't that mean something?  Like I don't really have to worry about chickens crossing the road?  I took a picture of it with my camera phone because  I knew without the picture proof most people would think I was crazy. This experience actually happened a few months ago.  And now every time I go to the library I do watch out for my friend, the chicken.  I hadn't seen one for a while so I was beginning to think it was a fluke. Maybe someone was out walking their pet chicken and it got away? Do people with pet chickens walk them?  (It sounds like it might fit.)  But last week as I exited the library, still marveling at the self checkout system, there was the little bird... and this time he had a friend. 

I caved!

I give up.  I’m putting my hands in the air and throwing in the towel.  I’m starting a blog.  I’ll admit this is something I have tried to avoid for some time now.  I’m not sure of all of the reasons why but I do know some.  Probably the biggest factor is that I realize there are not many people out there who I know would really want to read what I have to say.  We all have busy lives filled with various urgencies—what could I possibly type to make it worth someone’s time to spend a few minutes filling their minds with my rhetoric.  But since I am now actually here posting I guess I have gotten over that fact and may think that there are some people out there who might be interested (hey-- a girl can dream).  I’m delusional I know—but everyone has to live in some sort of make believe to survive.  So, here it is.  My blog.  I can’t make any promises about it other than it will be a collection of my thoughts and occurrences as they happen or are remembered (whichever comes first).  Please excuse the grammar and mistakes.  I admit I was an English major—but don’t hold it against me.  My best writing has always been in its imperfect form.  (Or so I tried to tell my grammar teacher when she tried to give me a lesser grade than I had desired.)  My school days are long gone and here I am… blogging away…wondering if any of this will make sense to anyone else.  In the end, I hope you enjoy—or at least can spend a few minutes escaping your own reality by reading mine.