Punctuation and Cupcakes

It’s that time of year again. Time to celebrate “the lowly comma, correctly used quotation marks, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons, and the ever-mysterious ellipsis.” (Lila Shapiro- Huffington Post) National Punctuation Day is Friday, September 24, 2010. Yep, it’s a nationally recognized day and I couldn’t be more excited. Visit here if you don’t believe me. This is the third or fourth year I, along with my department, have celebrated this blessed day. Each year our department has worn tshirts with our last name and our favorite punctuation mark on the back even with a fancy Issac Babel quote. “No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place.” What’s interesting is that Issac Babel was an enthusiastic Communist, yet he was arrested, tortured and shot during Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge. Being a journalist during the October Revolution and Stalin’s reign, he knew what power words can have.

This year I wanted to make it a huge celebration, so I took it upon myself to organize a few things: ask Hy-Vee to donate some sweets, a couple fun activities to do in the classroom, lesson ideas for non-English classrooms to share with my colleagues, and expand the number of teachers wearing tshirts to support the day. My colleague, hall buddy, and friend is actually the one that organized the tshirt part (I can’t take credit for that. All I did was encourage the current tshirt owners to wear them on Friday.) It is the first item in this list that I will relate now.

Another colleage told me about Hy-Vee’s generosity in donating sweets to certain schools for certian functions. She told me there was still one local store that hadn’t used up all their donation money for sweets, so off I went. I made sure to wear a pair of cute cropped dress pants, with shiny flats, and an awesome cardigan (you know to impress the baker and make him think I was legit.) So I go to the bakery counter and ask the gentleman if I could speak to someone about the possibility of getting cupcakes donated to my school. He gets out a sheet of paper that looks like an order form. My prospects are looking good, I thought.  

“How many cupcakes would you like us to make?” The young inquisitive baker said.

I put my head down and looked at my feet. “Seventeen hundred and fifty,” was my reply.

After the baker takes a deep sigh and tells me that may be hard to do, but he’ll try, he asks, “And what is this for?”

I put my head down and look at my feet again. “National Punctuation Day.”

While trying to contain a combination of shock and laughter, he says, “Well here’s my card with my phone number. The general manager should get back to you within a few days, but if she doesn’t, call this number. “

So off I went to wait for a phone call.

I waited for a week, then called and left a message for the manager.

I waited for another week and called again. I was put on hold for 10 minutes and hung up.

My students and I are cupcakeless, but that will not thwart our attempts to party like it’s...

            Here’s a note to  you Hy-Vee: I’m not giving up. I’ll see you next  year. Till then!

Visit National Punctuation Day website and Jim Burke’s English Companion Ning

Happy Punctuation Day to everyone! May your periods be perfectly placed and may your commas be consistently content where they are.

Exclamatorily yours,

B.