Sunday Scribblings Post-Prompt "Spelling"
Spelling
Amongst all of the magnets and comics strips and the quotes culled from the stacks of reading material adorning the shelves around our house, there's a small dry erase board with a blue electric guitar printed on it. It's supposed to be our list of stuff that we've run out of, so we can make our shopping list more easily.
Just because something in our house has a designated purpose, that doesn't mean that it will always be used that way. He likes to make drawings on the board, which I have a tendency to augment. It's a strange, mostly silly game of “The Exquisite Corpse”. We create these tiny worlds bordered by the edges of the drawing surface that are nothing more than elaborate inside jokes that only we will understand.
Sometimes, we use the board to leave each other little messages. I think my favorite was the morning that my refrigerator told me “Write something beautiful today. You are scaring your husband” in bold, purple letters. He'd been reading my latest story and it was getting pretty dark through the middle. I'd promised him it wasn't all going to be death, destruction, and chaos, but I wasn't entirely sure that he believed me. I'd left him more than a few “You're going to be okay” messages when I knew he was having a rough time and just needed something to remind him that at least one person in the world still loves and wants him.
All of this happens around the grocery list. Bits and pieces of the other things get erased to make room for “macaroni” or “salsa” or “baking soda” and it's not uncommon for us to experiment with trying to freehand a new font just for the heck of it. It serves no purpose other than amusing each other or ourselves. The funny thing is that it usually works.
It also helps me learn to decipher him. We have built our own personal lexicon, just like every couple does, and we've turned it into our own unique form of communication. We can translate each other's grunts and looks with a near alarming accuracy and we're masters of distinguishing an “I'm totally absorbed in what I'm doing” silence from a “just leave me alone and don't mess with me” silence.
We know the peculiar quirks of our communication styles, which means that when it comes to his liberties with the English language, I am not at a total loss to figure out what he meant instead of what he said. Today, our fridge door lets me know that we're out of “scrubie stuff”. I stop and stare at it. He's used the orange marker, a sign that he intends me to take special notice of this. We're completely out of “scrubie stuff” and he needs me to bring him more as soon as I can. It's my job because the particular stuff that we use is always on the bottom shelf of whatever store we're in and he can't ever remember the name. It's become one of our you just have to be us to get it jokes, since the stuff has the totally unremarkable name of Bar Keeper's Friend. To him, it's become “scrubie stuff” and when he says it, I know exactly what he means.
I have no idea what mess has resulted in the decimation of our supply. So, apprently, it did its job. Either that, or he was working somewhere that I don't usually check. It doesn't matter. We're out and I need to get more. I could critique his spelling, but it's not like anyone else will ever see it. It's not any indication of his intelligence, though I do consider it an indication of his creativity.
I grab my coat and my wallet and head out the door.
Amongst all of the magnets and comics strips and the quotes culled from the stacks of reading material adorning the shelves around our house, there's a small dry erase board with a blue electric guitar printed on it. It's supposed to be our list of stuff that we've run out of, so we can make our shopping list more easily.
Just because something in our house has a designated purpose, that doesn't mean that it will always be used that way. He likes to make drawings on the board, which I have a tendency to augment. It's a strange, mostly silly game of “The Exquisite Corpse”. We create these tiny worlds bordered by the edges of the drawing surface that are nothing more than elaborate inside jokes that only we will understand.
Sometimes, we use the board to leave each other little messages. I think my favorite was the morning that my refrigerator told me “Write something beautiful today. You are scaring your husband” in bold, purple letters. He'd been reading my latest story and it was getting pretty dark through the middle. I'd promised him it wasn't all going to be death, destruction, and chaos, but I wasn't entirely sure that he believed me. I'd left him more than a few “You're going to be okay” messages when I knew he was having a rough time and just needed something to remind him that at least one person in the world still loves and wants him.
All of this happens around the grocery list. Bits and pieces of the other things get erased to make room for “macaroni” or “salsa” or “baking soda” and it's not uncommon for us to experiment with trying to freehand a new font just for the heck of it. It serves no purpose other than amusing each other or ourselves. The funny thing is that it usually works.
It also helps me learn to decipher him. We have built our own personal lexicon, just like every couple does, and we've turned it into our own unique form of communication. We can translate each other's grunts and looks with a near alarming accuracy and we're masters of distinguishing an “I'm totally absorbed in what I'm doing” silence from a “just leave me alone and don't mess with me” silence.
We know the peculiar quirks of our communication styles, which means that when it comes to his liberties with the English language, I am not at a total loss to figure out what he meant instead of what he said. Today, our fridge door lets me know that we're out of “scrubie stuff”. I stop and stare at it. He's used the orange marker, a sign that he intends me to take special notice of this. We're completely out of “scrubie stuff” and he needs me to bring him more as soon as I can. It's my job because the particular stuff that we use is always on the bottom shelf of whatever store we're in and he can't ever remember the name. It's become one of our you just have to be us to get it jokes, since the stuff has the totally unremarkable name of Bar Keeper's Friend. To him, it's become “scrubie stuff” and when he says it, I know exactly what he means.
I have no idea what mess has resulted in the decimation of our supply. So, apprently, it did its job. Either that, or he was working somewhere that I don't usually check. It doesn't matter. We're out and I need to get more. I could critique his spelling, but it's not like anyone else will ever see it. It's not any indication of his intelligence, though I do consider it an indication of his creativity.
I grab my coat and my wallet and head out the door.