Good Grammar Works for Me

I got a message through Facebook a while ago from a character from my past. We'll call him JB. JB and I dated in high school. We were good friends, then high-school sweethearts. Then, I went off to college and ended our relationship because, well, I had grown up. So had he.

Unfortunately, as breakups tend to be nasty, this one was a bit gnarly. I've always had trouble ending things, whether it be caffeine or nail-biting or work committees or boyfriends. The end to this relationship dragged out for about a semester of my college career. I finally packed up every last morsel that I could find that either belonged to him or he had given me or had anything to do with our relationship. I took the package to him, said, "Here's your stuff," spun around, and left. Finally it was over.

It felt so nasty. And, I haven't really given much thought to him since. Two days after the "here's your stuff" conversation, he joined the armed forces. I heard through the usual grapevine that he had married a gal from our hometown. I finished college, married, moved away, went to grad school, got a job, moved again, had kids. But, then, suddenly comes the wonder that is Facebook. And there he is. In. My. Inbox.

If I'm being honest when I say I have trouble ending things, I'm even more honest when I say that I hate going back where I've been. I get goosebumps (the creepy kind--not the good kind) when I drive near my old high school. Thinking about going to old places of employment "to say hi" makes me feel queasy. I just hate going back.

But there I was, sitting in my chair, looking at the Facebook inbox. Sender: JB. It was a simple message:

just wanted to say hi and see how everything is going these days. I saw you at the game. Wish I had taken time to meet your children. My little girl and I was
there. How is your mom and dad and brother and sister doing? Well I hope.

The first thing I noticed about this message was not the fact that he had been watching me at the hometown football game I attended as part of my 10-year high school reunion festivities. I didn't even notice all the finer rhetorical things going on. Even though Welby and I did discuss the rhetoric of his message at length, burning at least a half hour of time, instead, I noticed the horrible grammar. Because grammar is my weapon of choice.

I should mention here that I am not a grammar snob entirely. Plenty of folks in my life don't use impeccable grammar, and that's fine. I understand. Seriously, I do not go around judging folks based on their grammatical choices...all the time. But, I do reserve that power for desperate times.

I started typing my response, and I just couldn't help myself. I had to bring out the high horse. I used a semicolon.

I'm doing well. I just got back from my ten-year reunion. I can't believe the time has slipped by that quickly. We didn't stay at the game very long. Spark and Flower were both getting tired, so I took them back to their grandma's
house. You have one daughter? And a son? My parents are great. They love being grandparents. My sister married a guy this summer; they just bought a house here
in Austin. My brother has two kids and works construction with Daddy. Right now, they work somewhere near Texarkana.

And I felt much better.

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Check out the other Works for Me Wednesday posts at We are THAT family.