Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Somteimes I miss the analog days. They covered a lot of my mistakes.

Handwritten notes let me fudge and smudge and avoid mistakes—like spelling. I could smudge the “i” and the “e” together and put the dot of the “i” somewhere in the middle, and no one could tell that I didn’t know how to spell. Well, the digital world finally came around with typing on a computer with auto-correct, so that’s okay.

But still, is it “effect” or “affect?” Is it “farther” or “further?” When I wrote this by hand, I could make squiggles so no one could tell if I knew what I was doing. The auto-correct word processor doo-dad doesn’t correct those goofs for me. I type them, and the whole world can see my ignorance.

All this digital computer stuff pushes me to know what I am doing. Rats.