Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Archives for April 2011

You will know them by their crab legs

The hubby and I had an impromptu date night tonight. He’d been wanting a chance to eat the seafood buffet at a local restaurant (for which we happen to have a gift card!), but he usually has class on Thursday nights. Since this is Holy Week, no class, and our friends were available to babysit, so seafood night was ours to behold.

We had no good idea what to expect. When the hostess asked if we were having the buffet, and we answered affirmatively, she grabbed a metal bucket and escorted us to our table. I don’t know if I actually looked at my husband at this point, but I was thinking, “Um, what’s the bucket for?” As we walked to our table, I noticed the buckets full of inedible seafood parts and was enlightened. OK, this is going to be fun, I thought.

My husband prayed before we left the table to approach the buffet but admitted that he was distracted by all the cracking sounds he heard. It was definitely noticeable.

We gave the buffet the once-over so as to choose wisely what we would eat: clams in the shell, tilapia, haddock, salmon, shrimp, shrimp and more shrimp, breaded scallops, clam strips, crab cakes …

and these:

Yeah, those are crab legs. They pretty much take up a whole plate. I decided to be adventurous and try one. Bear in mind, I’ve never eaten crab legs before. I admitted this to my husband when I sat down and added, “I don’t know how to eat a crab leg.”

I tried ripping it apart with my hands but ended up with cracked shell and little bits of crab. I was beginning to think it wasn’t worth the effort, even though it tasted good. My husband and I both thought there had to be an easier way.

Enter, the regulars.

A nearby table filled with three people. All three came back from the buffet with plates piled high of crab legs. I tried not to stare. Most importantly, though, they came back from the buffet with these helpful little gadgets.

Yeah, I’m pretty smart. I totally missed the crab leg crackers (if that’s even what they’re called) on the buffet. My husband graciously grabbed one for me, and I set out to figure out how to crack crab legs. There really should be a tutorial or a picture or a step by step guide. Or maybe I just needed a sign that said it was my first time. So, I watched the nearby table — the guy went through two heaping plates full of crab legs in no time. Trying not to stare, I started to catch on to what I needed to do. I mean, this guy was pulling long, intact pieces of crab out of the leg while I was eating it in bits.

My second crab leg, I started to figure it out. But by this time, I was so full that I could hardly finish it. Now, I want to go back just so I can practice eating crab legs.

We were headed to church after dinner for Maundy Thursday service, and as I savored my ice cream sundae, I was convicted about my enthusiasm for seafood night and ice cream sundaes and food, in general. Not that food, in itself, is bad, but am I as excited to be gathering at the communion table with brothers and sisters in Christ, feasting in remembrance of Him?

And then I thought about how confusing communion can be to those who aren’t “regulars.” We talk about the body of Christ and the blood of Christ and we offer bread and juice or wine, and we ask people to eat and drink. We pass the elements, or sometimes we line up for them or kneel at the altar or drink from the same cup. Sometimes we dip the bread in the juice. Sometimes we take it all together; other times, we take it one by one. I, for one, don’t know the significance of any of the various ways to celebrate communion, and I’m in church almost weekly.

What does communion look like to those who aren’t in church weekly? And who’s there to guide them through?

Bread and grape juice aren’t exotic, but tonight they tasted better than the crab legs. “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” the Bible says. How many people miss out on a spiritual feast because they don’t know what to do with Him?

Try Oatmeal

Yesterday, while driving past McDonald’s on my way to the Y, I read this sign: “Try Are Oatmeal.” Annoyed by the incorrect “are,” I vented via Facebook status.

What I meant as a therapeutic search for other “grammar Nazis” turned into a discussion about fast food workers and their education level.

I never meant to imply that fast food workers were uneducated because someone used the wrong “are” on a restaurant sign. Chances are, the person who did the actual work on the sign wasn’t the one who created the message, anyway. I try not to make those kinds of generalizations about people because we’ve been on the receiving end of ones that aren’t true of us.

But that’s not my point. Grammar is.

Today, this is what the sign said:

Thankfully, I’m not the only one who noticed or cared.

It’s an age where not many people seem to notice or care about spelling, grammar, punctuation and all the other rules of writing and speaking we used to learn about in school. (Yikes! Already, I sound like I’m old.)

I’ll be the first to admit I’m no grammarian. I don’t always get it right. And I don’t know every grammar rule in the English language. I’m no grammar expert. More of a lover, I guess. And I’ve made my fair share of mistakes, in public, in print. (I once included the word “tresses” in a  newspaper story about building a house. The wife of a builder sent me a not-so-polite message informing me that the word I was looking for was “trusses.” Embarrassing, to say the least.)

So, maybe I’m biased. As a professional writer and editor, grammar, and its correct usage, is part of my job. I get paid to care.

That’s not everyone’s position, but I think grammar (and spelling and punctuation, for that matter) is something most people should care about, whether it’s part of their job or not.

The McDonald’s sign, and the subsequent discussion, is proof of why.

I don’t know anyone who works at that McDonald’s, so the sign is my first, and maybe only, impression of the restaurant. When there’s a mistake on the sign, my first thought is NOT that everyone who works there must be stupid, but that they don’t care enough to get it right. So, if they don’t care enough to make sure their sign is spelled correctly and communicates an accurate message, do they care enough to get my order right? Or keep a clean restaurant? Or serve me with compassion and a smile?

It’s just a sign, right? Maybe I’m making too much of it. But what if that mistake was on your application for employment? Teachers used to call those “careless” mistakes, and a careless mistake can cost you a chance at a job, at a hearing, at an audience. Just recently, I’ve read a couple of books with major grammatical, spelling and typographical errors in them, which caused me to set them aside and lose respect for the message. Not caring about the details makes me think a person doesn’t care about the larger message or mission.

Digress with me for a moment. I watch a lot of “What Not to Wear,” and the hosts are constantly telling people on the show that how they dress sends a message to people. If they go out in sweats or pajama pants or big, baggy clothes, they’re essentially telling people that they don’t care enough about themselves to make an effort at looking nice.

Writing and speaking do the same thing: they send people a message. If you don’t want people to think you’re uneducated, then learn to use language properly.

That said, I don’t think the rules apply in every situation. Does grammar apply to texting or Twitter? Or Facebook for that matter? IMO, no. (That’s, “in my opinion” for the texting illiterate. I am one of you.) But if we’re talking about a public image: a sign, a poster, a job application, a presentation, then I say, put your best foot forward. It can only help you.

So, if you haven’t clicked away in outrage or disgust, here’s a little reward for you:

I discovered a new Web site this week. I suspect I’m behind the curve on this one, as I am on most things culturally popular and relevant. Oddly enough, it has to do with oatmeal, which, in a way, started this whole post. Click here to “try oatmeal,” or in this case, oatmeal.com. I can’t vouch for all the content on the site, but this comic about word misspellings made me laugh out loud. (Or LOL?)

If you find any grammatical mistakes in this post, care enough to tell me. And if you dare, post a few of your own. If we can’t laugh at our mistakes, we’ll be afraid to make them.