At the beginning of the school year, the district staff attends a meeting where we’re addressed by the upper administrators. The new assistant superintendent goes on and on about how creative children are and wants us to hear a poem her grandson wrote.

Assistant Superintendent: “‘If I were in charge of the world, I’d cancel homework and bathtime and dentist visits…’ Isn’t that adorable? Let me read more. ‘There’d be no more “Read a book”… You wouldn’t even have books.’” *Pauses* “Well, I guess that’s not so great, but listen… ‘A chocolate chip cookie would be a vegetable.’ How adorable is that? My grandson wishes cookies were vegetables. How cute! How creative!”

That night, using an anonymous email account, I write to her.

Me: “Your grandson’s poem is actually If I Were In Charge Of The World by Judith Viorst.”

Assistant Superintendent: “Yes, well, his teacher read his class the poem and then had them all fill in the blanks for their own version.”

Lady, don’t try to tell a bunch of teachers that your grandson wrote a pretty well-known poem. We do read. She only lasted a year in our district.

A coworker has been helping a customer for an unusually long time. They’re finally done with what seemed like a lot of questions, and they just collapse behind the counter for a moment.

Coworker: “You know what? I’m going to write a book and call it It’s Blue.”

Me: “Let me guess, for all the customers who come in saying, ‘I’m looking for a book; it’s blue.’?”

Coworker: “I’d sell millions!”

Thirty years ago, I was working in a pretty well-known American bookstore in Paris. A customer comes in one day looking for a specific book. So far, nothing out of the ordinary.

Me: “What’s the name of the book?”

Customer: “I can’t remember.”

Me: “What’s it about?”

Customer: “I just remember the colour of the cover: white and red. It talks about politics, but for the life of me, I cannot remember the name of the author!”

We found the book.

It was “Primary Colors”… by Anonymous.

A twenty-something-year-old woman comes up to me.

Customer: “What do you call the stuff that they write about that didn’t actually happen?”

We were standing in the fiction section, with big signs everywhere.

Related:
You Can’t Make This Up

Client: “My daughter has taken a college English course and she says that every instance of ‘that’ needs to be ‘which’ and the opposite in all instances in the book.”

Me: “Actually, they’re all correct as is, honoring the standard ‘that’ for restrictive and ‘which’ for non-restrictive. For example, it would properly be, ‘The dog that my aunt had, which was a mixed breed, was named [Dog].’ If one were to follow your directive above, it would incorrectly read, ‘The dog which my aunt had, that was a mixed breed, was named [Dog].'”

Client: “She took a college English course.”

Me: “With all due respect, I majored in it, plus I have thirty years of editing experience.”

Client: “I’m sure the rule has changed since you were in college. Maybe you should take a refresher to catch up on current rules.”

I billed for the hours I’d spent and gently ended my association with that (not which) project.