prize typos – Lee Duigon

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My wife types up our grocery list, and lately she’s found two recurring typos. I wonder what they mean.

*Instead of Uncle Ben’s Rice, she typed “Unclean Ben’s.” Dang that leprosy! Or maybe it’s some ritual uncleanness that can be put right… as long as you don’t eat the rice.

*And then there’s Wishbone’s “Fate-Free Italian Dressing.” Well, that’s a relief! I mean, really–you open a bottle of salad dressing and fate comes out??? We are profoundly relieved that Wishbone has taken care of that.

*Everyone has encountered this little glitch–you want to type “public school” and it comes out “pubic school.” Which, considering the latest developments in pubic education, isn’t so far out. (Ai-ya! Did it again, didn’t I? Some typos are more persistent than others.)

What are some of your favorite typos? Share them with us–who can’t use a good laugh, these days?

Laurel and Hardy only pretended to be chuckleheads; but they did it so convincingly, they got rich.

Even so, the finest specimens of chuckleheadedness are only unearthed by accident. And some of them are gems.

Just this morning I read an amazon.com Customer Review of my Bell Mountain–five stars, so I’m certainly not complaining–which featured a rare and valuable typo that has since been corrected. And please don’t think I’m making fun of the writer, because I know well that anyone can take a prat fall, big-time. You should see some of the whoppers my editors have saved me from committing to publication.

So this reviewer wrote of Bell Mountain as “the battle of goof vs. evil.”

Think about that!

Can goof actually defeat evil? You know something–I’m pretty sure it can. I’m pretty sure it has, all throughout history. How many fiendishly evil plans have been scuttled by pure incompetence?

This has the makings of a story. Maybe even a whole novel. Certainly a chapter, here and there. Most certainly, a chapter.

Inspiration comes when you least expect it, and from the least-expected direction, too. Don’t waste it when you’ve got it.