A busy weekend, people. Featured Bloggers by tomorrow early morning.
Shut up . . . I am doing the best I can.
Ahem.
“Hey, babe? You got a minute?”
Mark looks up from his work, “What’s up?”
“Promise not to laugh?”
“Nope. What do you need?”
“OK, you know how I am not the most accurate typist in the world?”
“Yeah.”
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
“Well, the keyboard on this new laptop is way smaller than I am accustomed to using, and I have been making a lot of typos.”
“And?”
“So I rely on that spell-check thing . . . you know . . . little red squiggly lines show up under the words that you misspell, and then you right-click on the mouse and choose the word you meant to type from the list provided.”
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
Mark is impatient, “Babe, what’s the problem?”
I sigh.
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
Mark looks above us . . . “What’s going on up there? Why is Maj beeping?”
I listen for a minute. I hear Maj and Kallan upstairs arguing about space on the couch and who is using too much of it, and then I hear . . .
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
Huh.
Mark and I sit and listen for a minute. There is more arguing. And then there is Maj’s voice, loud and clear . . .
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
I think, “Oh, you know what? I told Maj she needed to work on getting along with her sister. I told her she needed to work things out without coming to us all the time. I told her to back up for a minute and think about how to address the conflict.”
Mark smiles, “So that sound?”
“Yeah, Maj is backing up the truck of the conversation. Beep, beep, beep.”
“That’s hilarious!”
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
I ignore the backing-up warnings and continue my discussion with Mark, “Here’s the thing. I keep mis-clicking because I am not used to the touch-pad mouse thing. And so now I have added maybe 8000 misspelled words to the dictionary.”
Mark laughs, “So all of your most common misspellings are now . . .”
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
I nod sadly, “In the dictionary, yes. The computer thinks they are all correct. How do I fix that?”
He laughs harder, “I don’t even know. Why did you do that?”
“It was an accident.”
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
“You added 8000 incorrectly spelled words accidentally?”
“You know how I am.”
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
Mark gestures upstairs, “I really am happy that she is trying to work stuff out on her own instead of coming to us with every little petty bullshit problem. That’s awesome.”
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
“I know! Me too! She’s getting to be a big girl.”
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
I sigh again, “So I just have to have misspelled words in my dictionary? That sucks.”
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
“The next time you screw up a word and the spell-checking program thinks it’s correct, deal with it then.”
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
“OK, that is ANTI-HELPFUL, babe. The spell-checking program won’t notice my mistake, because it will think I am correct.”
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
“Oh yeah. Hmmmm . . . you’re fucked.”
And then there is the sound of feet pounding down the stairs.
And then there is Maj, flushed and disheveled and angry and yelling at us . . .
“BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP! WHY AREN’T YOU LISTENING TO ME? I SAID BEEP BEEP BEEP!”
I giggle, “Was beep beep beep NOT the sound of the back-it-up truck of maturity?”
Maj glares at me, “NO, MOTHER. NO, IT WAS NOT. BEEP BEEP BEEP IS THE SOUND OF DANGER! BEEP BEEP BEEP MEANS I AM ABOUT TO BE INJURED, MOTHER! BEEP BEEP BEEP MEANS I AM IN HARM’S WAY!”
“Wow. I so did not get that.”
“Mother? Do you care about my safety at all? I am up there with Kallan about to be gravely injured, and I send out the emergency alert signal . . . Beep, beep, beep . . . AND NO ONE COMES TO HELP ME!”
I giggle helplessly.
“Mother, this is serious. I could have been killed. Every beep was a possible death blow.”
Snort!
“Hey, Maj?”
She is all frowny, “What?”
“Do you know how to delete words from the computer’s spell-checking dictionary?”
“Why would you want to do that? Can’t you just ignore the words you don’t need?”
I am not in the mood to explain my stupidity, so I say, “Never mind why I want to do it, Maj. I just want to do it.”
She looks at me curiously, “No idea how to do that. But if you figure it out, do not delete Beep, beep, beep.”
“Yes, Maj . . . I am making a note. I pick up a pen and write, “Beep, beep, beep means . . . WARNING! Heinous Injury Now Expected.”
Maj is pleased, “Yes, that’s it exactly.”
I hold my note thoughtfully, “WHINE for short.”
“You annoy me, Mother.”
Snort!
I make a sassy show of typing WHINE onto my computer screen.
I accidentally type WHONE.
Oops.
Hover over . . . right click . . . roll up to make my selection.
DAMN IT!
Maj snorts with laughter, “Whone is not so much a word, Mother. Why did you add it to your dictionary?”
Hmmmph.
In a similar vein, my iPhone continuously changes “me” to “mr”. Just lowercase m, lowercase r, no punctuation. I somehow told it that’s what I wanted it to do the day I got the damn thing and I CANNOT figure out how to change it back. It annoys the crap out of mr.
Dammit.
Autocorrect is a whole other nightmare!
Snort!
Plus also?
Damn it.
My iPhone does THE SAME THING with me. I don’t think I’ve ever intentionally typed mr. But it seems to think I have…
Sassy iPhones.
WHINE.
And you planned that?
Or it was an amazing happy happenstance?
I hate touchpad mouses. They are useless to me.
Renee -
Of COURSE I planned that. Silly you. Of course I did.
I do that to the girls all the time . . . come up with a helpful phrase that is all sassy in acronym.
Hee hee!
I do that all the time.
Hahahaha – I think if you restore the dictionary to its original settings it’ll erase all of your creatively incorrect additions.
MKP -
Really? How do I do that, babe?
Yay!
Get back here and tell me how to do that!
YAY!
I found it!
Thank you, genius MKP!
Thank you!
whew – sorry I didn’t check in… I mean… I wanted you to Learn By Doing. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Snort!
OH I know how frustrating that is! The mouse on my new laptop does the same thing. It super sensitive and acts the second I even think about touching the pad. Great story as usual :) Next time I’m in trouble, I’ll think BEEP BEEP BEEP!
Snort!
I occasionally do the “beep, beep, beep” to mean that I want to back up the conversation.
It never occurred to me that Maj meant anything else.
Snort!
kris, i love the “beep beep beep” – LMAO!!! those girls are hilarious! proud of maj for not “wholing” ;)
speaking of incorrect spellcheck, have you ever gone to http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com ? funniest website ever – has all sorts of auto correct typos from peoples phones, and i literally cry laughing when i read it!! check it out!!
in the mean time, we’ll forgive typos! ;)
Sarah -
I have seen that website!
Very funny.
My errors are less funny . . . for example, every time I misspell something as somehting?
Which happens.
My computer is all happy with that misspelling.
Hmmph.
I am an idiot.
oh dang it that’s what I was going to suggest!
Hi, you!
That is a funny site.
Busy weekend? Ha!
You know you just don’t want to replace Haven with new featured bloggers. :)
Sierra -
Haven is fabulous, but nope . . . just busy this weekend.
Haven has been taken down.
I will miss her.
“Wow. I so did not get that.” LOL I swear, that is EXACTLY what I would have said!
Also — WHINE — priceless!! And I have no idea how to unlearn your dictionary. :-(
Sam -
Maj always thinks everyone should be on the same page she is on.
She is ALWAYS surprised to learn that this is not the case.
And it is not the case quite often.
Snort!
lol. I think I might only want a daughter if she ends up like yours.
Amy -
Maj is awesome.
She is in danger a lot.
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
But she is awesome.
Woohoo! I am not the only person to add words to the dictionary!
Adriana -
High-fives of stupidity!
Yay!
Wait . . . what?
You can edit the custom dictionary this way:
In Word versions prior to Word 2007 (Vista):
1.Click the Tools->Options menu item.
2.Click the Spelling & Grammar tab.
3.Click the Custom Dictionaries button.
4.Select CUSTOM.DIC. Be careful not to clear the checkbox
5.Click the Modify button.
6.Find and select the word you want to delete.
7.Click the Delete button.
8.Repeat steps 6 and 7 as needed.
9.OK out of everything.
In Word 2007:
1.Click the round Office button in the upper-left corner of the window.
2.Click the Word Options button.
3.Click Proofing.
4.Select CUSTOM.DIC. Be careful not to clear the checkbox.
5.Click the Edit Word List button.
6.Find and select the word you want to delete.
7.Click the Delete button.
8.Repeat steps 6 and 7 as needed.
9.OK out of everything.
I hope that helps I found it online. Google is so smart
You people are so lovely!
Thank you, Adriana!
I fixed it.
Happy correctly spelled sighs.
Before, the spell-checker was also accepting sihgs.
Ahem.
i love google. they seriously have a hold on me!! :) i ask them EVERYTHING! and then i always proclaim “what did people used to do before google???”
Sarah -
I always use Google, but I am so accustomed to going to Mark with computer stuff, I started with him.
Sassy laughing him.
Hmmph.
Dying at BEEP BEEP BEEP. I would have thought the same thing that you did. Hee hee!
I did a little Googling and found this:
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-use-word-2010s-autocorrect-feature.html
Maybe it will help you a little? I’ll keep looking and see what I can find.
So many helpful people.
Thank you!
Fixed.
Yay!
also, since i am all sorts of commenty tonight, make note to mark that we are all way more helpful than him saying “Oh yeah. Hmmmm . . . you’re fucked.”
:D
gold star for us! :)
I KNOW!
He is generally much more helpful than that.
It would have occurred to me to Google it at some point.
It would have.
Pretty sure.
Yes . . . GOLD STARS for EVERYONE!
Yay! Glad you fixed it!
Now you have to tell Mark that he better watch out, that you have other Tech Support People who will help you out when he can not!
Snort!
Snort!
Mark better watch his step.
Turns out he can be replaced more easily than he imagined.
HA!
And I take cookies for payment.
No sexual favors needed.
Hee hee!
Cookies, babe?
Mark may need to up his offerings.
Snort!
Yes, cookies…
As long as you don’t throw them at me.
And I prefer chocolate chip.
And maybe a glass of milk.
But I’m not asking for much.
Really.
Snort!
All we have is 2% milk.
If that will do?
Mark may be on his way out.
Kris.
I feel like this is a lie.
I feel like there is NO WAY in hell you would prefer baking cookies to giving blow jobs.
Haven -
How are you the first person to notice this and call me out?
Seriously, people.
I am not a milk and cookies sort of gal.
Thank you, Haven.
Me
How sad am I about your cookie mocky-ness?
BEEP BEEP BEEP!
You are all kinds of cute, cookie-less you.
Hee hee!
Touch-pads are fraught with danger. I have to laugh watching my giant pawed beloved try to operate his cell phone. He gets all sweary and annoyed.
I, on the other hand, am just as nimble fingered as a person can be.
Maj is awesome – perpetually awesome. I bet she’s nimble fingered, too.
Angie -
I AM NIMBLE FINGERED.
I am just used to being able to spread out my nimble fingers.
This laptop keyboard is all squeezy.
Hmmph.
finger dexterity must be another thing that tanks at 45.
ha ha!
~~~runs away as she hears kris yell “BEEP BEEEP BEEEEEEEEPPPP!!”~~~
Sarah -
No backing up will be required.
I will chase you down and kick your ass . . . you will never hear me coming.
Snort!
instead of chasing me, could you kindly roller blade? i’d like to see that show! ;)
Oh my god.
Someone is feeling very sassy.
Early bedtime for you, young lady.
I have had enough of this nonsense.
Don’t you come out all caps letters at me, lady! I can’t help it if you have the dexterity of a largish bear.
‘….’
Love you?
Angie -
I am all giggly at you guys and your sass.
You are like my children!
I generally win those battles, just so you know.
I so do.
I am sad you have deprived us all of the opportunity to get inside your head and find out which words you misspell most often…
Yuliya -
I am something of a perfectionist.
My own typos drive me INSANE.
Ahem.
Oh, yeah, we have one computer that now thinks that “thakns” and “tihs” are words, thanks to me teaching them to the dictionary. And guess which words I mistype more often than any other? You guessed it… same 2.
On the other hand I had to teach my Droid that “shit” is a word, it kept trying to auto-correct it to “shot” or “shirt.”
And finally, I LOVE Maj. Beep beep beep indeed.
Varda -
Did you see the help others left for me?
You can reset your dictionary and delete the words you have added!
It’s a miracle!
And yes . . . Maj is fabulous.
Beep beep beep.
Snort.
“Backing up the truck of conversation.”
Possibly the best parenting advice ever.
Leighann -
If only they would listen to me.
I do occasionally have wisdom.
I do!