sunday@borders

I'm sitting here doing some grading at Borders. While I recognize my liberal credentials would be bolstered if I expressed affection for some independent bookstore and independent/fair-trade coffeehouse, I love Borders. Indeed, I love Borders so much that I feel sorry sometimes for those doctors without them.

Not to be an e-avesdropper, but there was a hyperearnest-looking guy sitting next to me who was putting together a PowerPoint presentation that had something to do with getting people equipped for some outdoorsy exercise thing. His opening slide said, in big letters, GET FIT(ED). I imagined him standing in front of people with this presentation and people snickering at how he didn't know that fitted was spelled with two t's. I imagined his credibility being ruined and him being tainted meat in the snobby circle of educated-outdoorspeople for years to come. Crunchy folks with college degrees never forgive.

So, given that he seemed to be dangling over a chasm of reputational ruin, I spent some time internally debating whether there was any way I could casually note the misspelling to him without seeming like I was violating all kinds of norms of laptop privacy. Then, remarkably, he suddenly scrolled up and corrected the error himself. Can lexical duress, in the right circumstances, lead to telepathy? I report, you decide. (I feel compelled to add that the correction happened at seemingly exactly the same moment as this freaky first-of-May snow began to fall outside.)