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Unnecessary Apostrophes, and an Irishman in the House!

November 14, 2012 By Jeff 45 Comments

My employer gives everyone a frozen turkey every year for Thanksgiving, and it’s a nice gesture.  However, there are signs posted all around the building reminding us to pick up our “turkey’s” on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.  And that unnecessary apostrophe taunts me.

It says, “I am strong, and you are weak.  I know I don’t belong here, but there’s nothing you can do about it.  Nothing!  Even if you decided to go full-crackpot and make an issue of it, I’ll just pop up somewhere else, in a day or two.  You can not defeat me!  I am the unnecessary apostrophe, and you are… NOBODY!!”

It’s upsetting.  Because that evil bastard is right.  I have no recourse.  Oh, I might be able to do something about the “turkey’s,” but in a few days they’d just start taking “donation’s” for something, and we’re back to square-one.  As long as there are words that end in the letter S, people will believe an apostrophe is necessary.  And the scourge will continue.

Anyway.  I was listening to the Stiff Little Fingers earlier, and got up to take a shower.  Yeah, sorry for putting that disturbing image in your brain…  But I showered, and headed back to the bunker.  And as I approached the doorway, I heard some Irish guy talking.  What the?  The floor of my ass nearly fell out.

The panic only lasted a second or two, but it packed a punch.  I thought, for that brief period, that an Irishman was in our house for some reason, pontificating with enthusiasm.  But then I remembered…  There’s an interview at the end of that CD, with the leader of the band.  Shit!

Back during the 1970s my grandmother was taking a shower (no!  good god, no!!) and a so-called “laughing bag” somehow fell off the arm of a couch.  So, when she turned off the water, she heard uproarious laughter coming from the living room.  She nearly had a coronary.  Of course, a few years later she had a REAL coronary, but that’s a different, less-amusing story…

I’ve also heard Adam Carolla tell a story about coming home drunk, and going straight to bed.  And during the middle of the night the TV in his exercise room turned itself on — because of a timer that was mistakenly set or somesuch.  The volume was cranked way up, because he watched it while working out, and there was some fire and brimstone preacher on.  So he was awakened by someone shouting about eternal damnation and hellfire, and he almost shit the credenza.

If you guys have any stories to tell about times when you thought somebody was in the house with you, or something similar, please share them in the comments section.

And this is Wednesday, so I need to cut this one a little short.  I have a staff meeting to scowl my way through…  But before I go, I want to thank whoever purchased this confusing thing at Amazon a few days ago.  He or she clicked through one of my links, and now I’ll receive six percent.  Just one extra click, and it helps me a great deal.  Please don’t forget the extra click, even if you’re buying something less expensive than a milling machine, or whatever.  Thanks, folks!

I’ll be back tomorrow.

See ya then!

Now playing in the bunker
Treat yourself to something cool at Amazon!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Uncle_Wedgie says

    November 14, 2012 at 2:08 pm

    Hello

    Reply
  2. Dogberry says

    November 14, 2012 at 2:15 pm

    What are your thoughts on the coming demise of the word “than”? It seems to me that many are just using “then” for statements both of order and comparison.

    Reply
  3. JCIII says

    November 14, 2012 at 2:18 pm

    Good Afternoon Surf Reporters….

    At my job, everyone gets a turkey AND a ham around Christmastime.

    For as much as the Big Boss shows his disdain for me, I almost feel guilty accepting them.

    More than once, I’ve almost wanted to say “no, that’s OK, you keep them.”

    Reply
  4. Linda says

    November 14, 2012 at 2:29 pm

    I accidentally set a timer on the TV remote, which turned the TV off 30 minutes later. (It was probably 20 years ago.) My daughter was watching a show, and when it was over I said, “Okay, time to go to bed.” and the TV shut itself off. I was awake all that night freaking out about that.

    Reply
  5. Average Jane says

    November 14, 2012 at 2:46 pm

    My home office is in the next room from my husband’s office and occasionally his computer will spring to life and start playing audio of some sort. Always scares the crap out of me, even though it’s obvious where it’s coming from.

    Reply
  6. knucklehead says

    November 14, 2012 at 2:58 pm

    I have parrots, so I always think someone is in the house with me. “Hello? HELLO??”
    Once my husband and I ent Mexico and my BIL & SIL watched the birds. They were upstairs in the bedroom one night and thought we had come home early. It sounded like I was on the telephone downstairs in the living room (where the birds were) My bird did a perfect impersonation of me on the telephone and laughed exactly like me. Totally freaked them out.

    Reply
  7. Jed says

    November 14, 2012 at 3:03 pm

    JESU’S you got 6%!? I bought that for my shop a few days ago, and your amazon reminder’s were fresh in my minds eye. With all of the purchase’s I make there, turkey’s wont be the only thing on the table this thank’sgiving.

    Reply
    • The Divine Miss E says

      November 17, 2012 at 6:28 am

      Thanks for this. I laughed my ass off at “JESU’S”.

      Reply
  8. Ognir says

    November 14, 2012 at 3:21 pm

    Rats In The Cellar (Aerosmith) can be a bit of a wake-up if you have headphones on and you are slightly asleep.

    Reply
  9. Joey Jo Jo says

    November 14, 2012 at 3:22 pm

    I feel ya about the apostrophes…

    http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/

    Reply
  10. Phil Jett says

    November 14, 2012 at 4:13 pm

    How can someone make that sign, look at it and then not realize how fucking stupid it looks.

    It so irritates me that if someone told me they made the sign I would punch them right in the temple.

    Reply
  11. CADude says

    November 14, 2012 at 4:18 pm

    I was out in the back yard, blasting Joe Walsh’s album “But Seriously, Folks” from the living room; my teen son was in his bedroom in another part of the house with a friend. At the end of the album, after a 10-second or so pause, Joe says “Uh oh…here comes a flock of Wah-Wahs”, followed by the sound of a passing flock of Wah-Wahs. My son and his friend bolted out of the bedroom thinking that they’d find a flock of birds flying through the house. Good times.

    For those of you not familiar with this famous Walshism, you can hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OdVYnnp0Uw

    Now I’m going to go back and make sure that I apostrophed correctly.

    Great t-shirt: “I’m Silently Critiquing Your Grammar”

    Reply
    • Uncle_Wedgie says

      November 15, 2012 at 12:59 pm

      I love that album. I must go back and revisit it soon.

      Reply
  12. Fancy Pants Maguire says

    November 14, 2012 at 4:53 pm

    I here what your saying about folks that don’t know how to use apostrophe’s! Some folks who are trying to right just don’t no what their doing. They’re is just to much ignorance out their!

    Reply
    • Doug says

      November 14, 2012 at 6:09 pm

      You are sending into grammatical overload here…

      Reply
      • Doug says

        November 14, 2012 at 6:10 pm

        Oh, uh, “sending me into grammatical overload”, that is.

        Reply
  13. Limey says

    November 14, 2012 at 5:01 pm

    Staying in a swanky hotel with the missus. Fireplace in the room. Went to bed after much alcohol. I wear glasses, but not when I’m sleeping, so my eyesight’s bad. Woke up drunk needing to pee and starting yelling about the room being on fire, “get the fuck out now” to the missus. Had left the fireplace on. Cue hysterics from wife…

    Reply
    • Uncle Goo says

      November 14, 2012 at 7:26 pm

      HAHAHA-CHOKE! I walk and talk in my sleep: I thought the ceiling heat was on fire one night. Wife knew I was dreaming and told me “EFF-OFF”. I told her “Fine, lay there and burn.” Same time frame, and stressed to no end, I used to go out to the front door, naked in the middle of the night and direct traffic up and down the driveway. Wife put a security chain on the door, when she realized that the next door neighbors were sittting out in lawnchairs, quiet as churchmice, waiting for the show.

      Reply
      • M says

        November 14, 2012 at 8:34 pm

        I walk and talk in my sleep, too, and I have night terrors. It has certainly made my husband’s life more interesting than it should be.

        Reply
      • CADude says

        November 15, 2012 at 4:00 pm

        That’s quite a coincidence, Uncle Goo. Last night TW also told me, “You’re dreaming. Ef off.”

        Reply
  14. Limey says

    November 14, 2012 at 5:02 pm

    I would be walking around the building with a magic marker fixing the signs, but then I’m a pedantic asshole.

    Reply
  15. t-storm says

    November 14, 2012 at 5:38 pm

    My sister in law can’t conjugate a verb to say her life. I don’t see her type much but on FB she does the apostrophe thing, then/than, etc.
    What I hate is that when I correct it she just doesn’t care. My nephews are gonna be campbell’s soup hicklets.

    Reply
  16. chill says

    November 14, 2012 at 7:12 pm

    Yesterday evening I heard a sound like a big empty coffee can falling on the floor. I still have no idea what it was.

    The apostrophes make me crazy. And looking at Joey Jo Jo’s link reminded me of another peeve: what is with the hyphen between THANK and YOU? I see that a lot.

    Love the web sight.
    .

    Reply
  17. hardoxdan says

    November 14, 2012 at 11:18 pm

    There is a local “Do It Yourself” car wash near here that has a guy on duty from about 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM weekdays hosing down the bays, filling the liquid soap dispenser, etc.

    They have a sign out front that reads:
    “Car’s Hand Washed $10”

    Someone wrote beneath that with a thick marker:
    “My car does not have a hand”

    The sign has remained this way including the comment for about 15 years.

    Reply
  18. bikerchick says

    November 15, 2012 at 9:37 am

    Our kitchen, livingroom and diningroom is one big open room. A small greatroom of sorts. I have an antique mirror on the floor that leans against the wall in the diningroom area. My boyfriend thinks there is a spirit of a man that “lives” in it and walks around the house at night. He swears he has woken up in the middle of the night, when he falls asleep on the couch, to see this guy standing and walking in the diningroom. He thinks someone is robbing the house. I personally have never seen this “spirit”. I do believe in that kind of thing. But then again I have been awakened in the middle of the night hearing something, only to venture out to the livingroom to find my boyfriend’s drunk ass peeing on the coffee table.

    Reply
    • Bill in WV says

      November 15, 2012 at 2:18 pm

      Well, I’ve done that before, but in the laundry basket full of clothes. What the hell, they were already dirty.

      Reply
      • Skippy says

        November 15, 2012 at 10:13 pm

        Don’t forget about Mr. Smith used the litterbox instead of the toilet. Or your DirecTv reciever box. Or your bar floor.

        Reply
  19. madz1962 says

    November 15, 2012 at 10:06 am

    I wake up and can swear the TV is on downstairs. I figure Beloved is up watching the news. On occassion, I’ll walk intot he living room and the TV is off. It’s an eerie feeling.

    Reply
  20. dto says

    November 15, 2012 at 10:26 am

    I’m home…YAY!!!. after almost four weeks out. Long day yesterday. Drove down to Santa Fe. Bought two LG medium sized BATs. Responsibly partied at several thurst parlors on the Plaza then home. Home cooking and margaritas. Totally cool day. Got up around 3AM to pee and hang out with Harriette R. Dogg. Dear wife said she alomst shot me because she forgot I was home. That .357 would have taken out the two new BATs too. She’da been sorry. She loves those TVs.

    Reply
  21. Jason says

    November 15, 2012 at 10:42 am

    I got up one morning and there was a man sitting at our dining room table with his back to me. He wouldn’t respond to my yelling so I got a gun and prepared to shoot him in the brain. Turns out his head was a new centerpiece that my wife had bought and his back was one of my jackets draped over the chair. Scared the shit out of me.

    Reply
    • madz1962 says

      November 15, 2012 at 2:20 pm

      Holy shit, Jason, that’s FUNNY!

      Reply
    • bikerchick says

      November 15, 2012 at 4:28 pm

      I have a cloth mannequin on a stand I use for my jewelry display and photographs. She is as tall as me. To get to the baffroom, we have to walk by the room where I keep her. That room has a glass paned door. The first week I had her, we both forgot she was there. So going to pee in the middle of the night and seeing her scared us half to death.

      Reply
  22. Bill in WV says

    November 15, 2012 at 2:08 pm

    Sheet of notebook paper, with handwritten message, taped to outside of bathroom door in one of our local Chinese restaurants.

    “No publi”

    WTF!!! If you can’t learn the home team language enough to prepare a damned sign, saying “Restroom for our customers only”, leave the fuck now.

    Reply
    • t-storm says

      November 15, 2012 at 3:17 pm

      Everyone hates the public kids. Even I hate the public kids.

      Reply
    • madz1962 says

      November 15, 2012 at 3:35 pm

      I read that really fast as “No Pubie” and I thought “Do they have someone in there checking to see if you’re shaved?”

      “Get out! You have Pubies”

      Reply
    • johnthebasket says

      November 15, 2012 at 3:53 pm

      I believe the Chinks were writing in Latin. They probably went to Oxford. I wouldn’t fuck with them.

      jtb

      Reply
      • CADude says

        November 15, 2012 at 4:05 pm

        I believe there’s more than a little HST in there, jtb. Well done.

        Reply
  23. Alex says

    November 15, 2012 at 4:47 pm

    Get some postits, write on it:

    You failed grammer didn’t you?
    These words do not require apostrophes.
    If you happen to thing it should be “These word’s…”
    You are stupider than I thought.

    When people come asking, “I didn’t see anyone do that, but whoever did is correct”. =-)

    Given time and stealthy postit attachment, they will learn.

    Reply
    • t-storm says

      November 15, 2012 at 5:32 pm

      are the typos ironic?

      Reply
      • chill says

        November 15, 2012 at 5:38 pm

        Those don’t seem like a typos. Let’s be charitable and assume there was some sort of “smart” auto-correction going on unbeknownst to Alex.
        .

        Reply
    • CADude says

      November 15, 2012 at 6:03 pm

      That made my head hurt.

      Reply
  24. Eddie MC says

    November 15, 2012 at 4:50 pm

    Back in my college days, I needed somewhere to stay for free in New York City so I stayed on my friend’s mother’s couch. I walk into her living room in the middle of the night and freak out because in the dark I think I see a man face down dead in the middle of the floor. I wake up my friend’s mother and she explains that it is not a dead man but just a life-sized Abraham Lincoln manequin that she had made for Lincoln’s Birthday. She says that the manequin must have fallen off the chair. I think to myself that she is a little crazy and that she has a lot more money than she knows what to do with.

    Reply
  25. Harpo says

    November 15, 2012 at 8:21 pm

    I drove up one weekend to visit a friend at college. In the morning we’re just sitting around talking and somehow get on the topic of psychic powers and just for the heck of it I suggest we try and turn the alarm clock on with out minds. It was 8:22 so I say we’ll try for two minutes, until 8:24. So we’re sitting there in intense silence trying to will this thing on. It clicks to 8:24… and turns on. My eyes go wide and for one glorious moment all the possibilities of the world open up to me – then I notice my friend laughing his ass off. Seems he had, for some reason known only to himself, set the alarm to 8:24 the night before. 25 years later and he still laughs about it and I have to agree. Wow -the thoughts that went through my mind for those few split seconds. The worst (or best) part was that it was all my suggestion. I eventually got him back of course but that’s another story…

    Reply
  26. Harpo says

    November 15, 2012 at 8:22 pm

    “our”, not “out” in the second sentence. Dammit…

    Reply
  27. The Divine Miss E says

    November 17, 2012 at 6:52 am

    A friend of mine had a stupid life-sized cardboard cutout of Robert Pattinson, as his character from Twilight. Don’t even ask why, she just did. She kept it in a spare bedroom, and when I happened to walk into that room in the dark and saw that damn pale face out of the corner of my eye, I almost pissed myself. I blame that whole franchise for scaring the crap out of me in the dark.

    Reply

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