One of my scintillating tasks at work — and I don’t necessarily mean that sarcastically — is to type up the Justice and City court logs. This is something I would never read in a newspaper. I don’t care enough about whether or not one of the 10 people I know got in trouble to force myself to read a full page of entries about who got jailed and/or fined.
If they want me to know, they’ll tell me. And if it’s so big I need to know (like, say, if they’re a serial killer) I’ll read about it on one of the front section pages I’m paid to read, or someone in this small town will stop me to tell me about it. With glee. Otherwise, I say live and let whatever.
On the other hand, it gives one a perspective on the community that I might not have acquired otherwise, and that’s oddly fascinating. E.g. Some people are arrested a LOT. Most people in the courts are 19-35 years old and male. And there are a surprising number of people in their 70s and 80s who wind up in court. Oh, and did you know that school yard fights, that used to get kids detention picking up garbage on the playground after school now get them arrested, and “into the system.” I find that last one disturbing.
But my point on this topic is less, well, poignant that all that. The triviality of it is that since I type with the speed and accuracy of the average 10-year-old, I have issues with doing so much typing.
Today’s highlighted issue: The many ways one can screw up typing “fined”, and still run under the spell-checker radar: find, fiend, friend, finned, fin, fine, fried, fond, fund, vined, dined, fines.
“So what” you might be saying, but consider that I regularly type this particular word more than 200 times in one document, which translates to roughly 100,000 times that I have to re-type it, and you get my drift. It’s aggravating. Today, I am aggravated. All I can say is the owners got what they paid for when they hired me.
As a kind of Post Script not related in any way to typing, but is related to being “find” and makes me feel like a wimp for whining about my head cold today: Did you all see that a teen-aged girl was found buried in the rubble of Haiti today? Fifteen days after the quake — 15 days, FIFTEEN days, nights too, buried alive under stuff without sustenance. omg.
I can believe anything now at: pam(at)viewfromthenorth40(dot)com
View from the North 40 
4 comments
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January 28, 2010 at 5:52 pm
BFF Mary
Clearly someone was watching out for her…. and clearly, it was not her time…..
January 28, 2010 at 5:53 pm
BFF Mary
Clearly someone was watching out for her…. and clearly, it was not her time…..WOW!!!
January 28, 2010 at 6:57 pm
Brunette
I had a really crappy day today – but not as bad as those 15 were for that girl!
January 28, 2010 at 9:22 pm
Pam Burke
I had a discussion with a co-worker today about the things that prove one’s mettle. I don’t have space or inclination to get into the whole length and breadth of the details, but the conversation boiled down to two points:
1) Our actions in times of need and our reactions to events that happen to us reveal and/or develop our character.
2) Despite what we’d like to think about ourselves, we don’t know the measure of our character until we’re faced with these situations. (I know, an awfully deep conversation for a shallow pool like me, but I floundered my way through it.)
By anyone’s standards, being buried alive like that is horrifying, so I can’t say my degree of creeped-out-ness is anything unusual, but it would rank in the top five horrible events I’m willing to think of off the top of my head. It drives me to wonder then, if I’d been buried alive for 15 days, would I be PTSD handicapped for life, would I be bitter about all I’d lost, would I rejoice in my second chance on life?
No answers, just something to think about over a beer and pizza … or wine and chicken alfredo, or tea and a tofu salad, or whatever suits your character.