Your Bad Grammar Is The Reason I Don't Like You

My family moved to a new house during the summer before my fifth grade year. Since we moved to a new district, I had to leave the elementary school that I had spent the better part of my life and start a new school. I learned on my very first day that my fifth grade teacher was a grammar, spelling, math, science, and BrainQuest 5 Nazi. On any given day, at any given time, there could be as many as five students standing at one of his two very large blackboards scribbling feverishly. All of them trying to redeem themselves in time to be granted the privilege of going to recess. Luckily, my social activities at the age of ten consisted of playing the Sims and listening to my father sing Bruce Springsteen lyrics punctuated with swearing at the cat, so I was a very good student. At first I was horrified to imagine the level of embarrassment those students were suffering through while I watched them write, "I will be a more responsible 5th grader" twenty five times in front of all of us. As the year went on, it became more of a normalcy. I no longer cared that my classmates continued to shame themselves by not completing their homework and ending up at the board. My teacher had high expectations and strict rules, but as long as I stayed in line I would not earn that fate. I could stop sweating.

One day in late March when I was feeling particularly good about myself (I was crowned the winner of that day's BrainQuest 5 game), the hand of God came down and punched me in the face. Upon grading my homework from the previous day my teacher found what he described as a "deplorable and inexcusable error." I saw my snack time flash before my eyes. I knew as I approached his desk that I would not be enjoying my Gushers and blue Mondo that day. Here's how a fifth grade grammar mistake changed how I choose my relationships as an adult:

Teacher:              Look at this and tell me what you've done wrong.

5th grade me:      ::I say nothing and stare. I feel my organs exploding::

Teacher:              Sigh. What do you want to be when you're older?

5th grade me:      Um, a teacher I think.

Teacher:              Ha!! You think any school is going to hire you with THIS in your permanent record?! You can kiss your teaching career goodbye! I'll be ordering my hamburgers from you in the very near future, dear.

5th grade me:      But, wait. No! My friend and I did our homework together! She helped me! ::at this point I was lying, desperately trying to shift the blame::

Teacher:              People who give you this kind of advice are NOT the type of people with whom to be friends. That's the fastest route to Juvenile Detention, I'll tell you that much. 

I thought at this point that maybe I had murdered someone in my Lisa Frank notebook and forgot. I saw visions of my future self living in an alley behind a dumpster with rabid pet raccoon named Chuck. My teacher then circled my mistakes in red pen.

I could not believe this. How could I have confused 'there' with 'their'? I vowed at that moment to pledge my life to avoiding grammar mistakes and helping others to do the same. I paid a heavy price for that mistake. I wrote "Their is not there nor they're" twenty five times while my fellow students enjoyed their Fruit Roll-Ups and teenies. I would find myself at the board three more times that year for math-related incidents. I accepted those as inevitable, as I had no time to focus on math skills while I was busy obsessing over how not to end a sentence with a preposition.

Fast forward to age 25. I don't want to contribute to this nation's unemployment rate, so I have a job. I am required to interact with hundreds of people over the course of a week. Each day I find myself screaming at people in my head to learn how to speak like a human. I like to pretend I don't judge people for saying "alterate" instead of "alter," but I do. I like to pretend that when I find spelling errors and misplaced apostrophes in a mass produced advertisement that I don't want to put a paper bag over my head and flush myself down the toilet, but I do. 

I choose my relationships based on a wide range of personality-related criteria. However, if you send me a text that says, "Yea ,,, u should of gone ova thea !!!!!" consider our friendship terminated. Internet shorthand is not an excuse to not learn how to converse like an adult. The fact that you still use it at 25 is not something I'm interested in exploring. 

I learned a lot from my fifth grade teacher. If you know the difference between your and you're, you won't end up being a criminal.