Ten-Minute Write, No. 4

“That wasn’t what I meant at all, John.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No, it wasn’t!”

“Well, what did you mean, then?”

“I want a program like this, but I don’t want this one, you understand?”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Don’t make me smack you.”

“But how am I supposed to do it? This is exactly what you want, by your own definition. What would be wrong with just using this one?”

“I don’t like the instructor, ok? Her e-mail grammar is atrocious.”

“Her e-mail grammar?”

“Her fucking e-mail grammar!”

John sighed. “She made a mistake. You should give her a second chance. Besides, why does a spin instructor need to be a good grammarian?”

His boss shook his head, swiveled in his chair, and stared out the window. He steepled his fingers. “I try so goddamn hard.”

“What were you e-mailing your spin instructor?”

“She asked me out.”

“Really?”

“Fine, I asked her out. That’s not against the rules, is it?”

“No, that’s fine.”

“Well, it’s not. She turned me down, and now I can’t go back there. She’s hot. Hot as hell. But I can’t go back there. Just another hot woman I’ll probably never see again.”

“You make it sound like such a tragedy.”

“It is a fucking tragedy.”

“What did she screw up?”

“What?”

“Grammatically. What did she screw up?”

“Oh. She wrote that I was a nice guy,” his boss said. “I mean, she wrote, ‘Ben, I think your a really nice guy.’ You know, with the, what do you call it?”

“Oh, the possessive instead of the contraction?”

“Exactly.”

John grimaced. “That’s awful.”

His boss shook his head. “I know, right? So bad.”