Words that elude me

I'm shamefully proud of my vocabulary. I'll admit it, spelling and grammar come easy to me. (Not that I don't abuse the latter at times, but I KNOW I'm breaking the rules.) And it's either an inherent gift or something that rubbed off during all of those years when, as a chubby, pimply-faced geek with no friends, I submerged myself in books.

Actually the pimply-face came later, I was already the kind of dorkchild who methodically read through all of the biographies in the children's section -- checking out an "A", a "B", a "C", on through the alphabet, then doubling back until I'd read them ALL. I'd read pretty much all of the books in the children's section -- at least any that weren't specifically boybooks -- baseball, car-related.

In any case, anything English language-wise always came easy to me -- except diagramming sentences or memorizing the NAMES of parts of speech.(That was always like taking apart a lizard to see how it works. I already know how it works and once you've dissected it, it's not really a working lizard anymore...)

( But certain words elude me. )

Gotta love my job!

I just got an e-mail with the title:

"Toilet Seat Cover Worldwide Shortages"

and it's not spam. It's real. China is shutting down major factory operations in order to clear pollution in Beijing.

Now, don't panic, they still make them here in the good ol' U.S. of A. But Michigan's got union labor and those toilet seat covers don't come cheap.

Good thing my momma taught me the old folded toilet paper trick....of course it's narrower than it used to be....

In either case, I now need to compose a memo alerting our customers to the possible shortage and increased price. Don't you wish you had my job?