I Don't Understand Some People

I'm pretty laid back, if I were more so, I'd be dead. I'm also a person with enough brains to make my own choices in life. And I like to not only make my own choices, I like to know why I make them. I don't mind folks disagreeing with me, but at least have the guts to understand yourself and why you make your choices the way you do.

But there are so many people in this world, who just truly don't understand why everyone doesn't do things their way.

I can get along with most anyone that is even half-way nice, but eventually the know-it-alls get under even my skin.

And I realize that with 300million people in America, we have to have laws and regulations, because we have such a hodge-podge of ways of living now, people are always stepping on one another's toes, so to speak. We have some stupid laws, but without many of our laws we'd have anarchy. I definitely don't want that.

All of that aside, most people, regardless how obnoxious they are, don't have a lot of impact in my life.

But there is someone who lives in Brevard County, Florida, that I'd like to get my hands around his neck. I have no idea who this man is.

I have checked out many, many books from the library over the years we've been here.

I tend to gravitate toward thrillers, mysteries, spy novels as well as the occasional science fiction. And over the years I've plowed through a bunch of them.

Some guy down here reads a lot of the same books I do.

How do I know this?

He "corrects" certain words by crossing out each and every word that offends him and writes in his correction.

Cinder blocks. All my life, most everyone I knew, called cinder blocks, cinder blocks. And all of these folks, including myself, have juuussstt enough brain power to know that they are made of concrete. But to me, getting your point across is 99 percent of what language is all about. So, as long as you are getting your meaning across to me, I don't care what words you use.

Someone says cinder block and I know exactly what you're talking about. You have successfully communicated to me what your meaning is.

Mystery Man however, has some serious issues. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've see the word cinder in cinder block scribbled out, and the word concrete written above it. I could take Lovely Wife out to a nice restaurant.

It's almost always done in pencil, and the method of scratching out cinder and the handwriting on the word concrete is the same.

There have been a few other words and phrases that I've seen corrected like this in all the books I've read, but that's the one that I've seen SO many times. It's an absolute compulsion with this guy.

Can you imagine what it's like to be around him? This guy's gotta be worse than a grammar snob. I feel sorry for his wife, kids, and grandkids.

Good thing I have an eraser handy for when I come across his work. If the author originally intended to write cinder block instead of concrete block, I consider it a small thing to correct Mystery Man's work wherever I can.

Just doing a public service, in my own humble way.