MISTAKES

Everyone makes mistakes. Lord knows that I make my fair share, and far more often than I probably deserve.

Case in point? Only yesterday, I was taking a long walk down Fifth Avenue. All of the sudden a woman appeared, walking out of a doorway. She was quite cute, with silken blonde hair and these legs that went, well… let’s just say that they were long.

In any case, I found the girl to be attractive. The same could be said for half the other women who walk these city streets, but this particular woman benefited from the fact that she was there, walking right in front of me. Immediately, I began to fumble for a way of gaining her attention.

I’ve never really been the guy with a line, and a part of me suspects that it may be a good thing. Nevertheless, short of stopping this woman cold, save for literally impeding her path, the options apparent to me in that exact moment were few.

One thing is for certain. I was aware that my window was closing quickly. So, I checked her out. I mean, I wasn’t lascivious about it, but still. I gave the girl a look, and a good one. Threw in a bit of a smile, maybe. Honest to God, I tried to look cool doing so, to come across in a way that was decidedly non-creepy.

Say what you will about best-laid plans, but I kid you not: The glance that I got back from this girl… it made me feel just dirty, and not in a good way. It wasn’t as though she took my look to mean, “You saucy little minx” and then shot back a message unspoken, and in her own coquettish way, with a playful, flirty, “you naughty boy!”

No, this was much more of, “You fucking pervert. What is wrong with you, to look at me like that, and at this very moment?”

That’s when it hit me. It’s probably best not to hit on a girl when she’s clutching a shopping bag, and has just—and I mean, just—walked out of a Victoria’s Secret.

To be fair, she probably assumed that my eyes and my mind went straight from the bag and the thoughts of what it might contain, to basically, well… mentally undressing her body. When it’s put like that, I suppose she had every reason to take my smile the wrong way. Still, despite the awkward moment that our exchange may have produced, as if that weren’t enough, this morning I nearly went back for more.

Walking along the waterfront, on my way to work, I came across a woman who was wearing a plaid skirt. It’s probably quite obvious, as to where I’m about to go with this, but I attended Catholic school. The girls who matriculated at our sister schools, they often wore these woolen, pleated skirts, and in a variety of plaid patterns. Stop me if you’re there already, but the skirt that this woman was wearing this morning?

It was the spitting image. Therefore, it also happened to be the very same image that probably got me through puberty.

Strike me down for saying as much, but suddenly I found myself this close to telling the poor woman wearing a plaid skirt that her clothing had catapulted me back to my days as a curious, Catholic schoolboy. Had I muttered so much as a word to that effect, I can tell you now that I’d have done so with a smile, and of the neighborly, friendly variety. Would she have taken it that way, as all kinds of complimentary and in no way pervy? Go on. Take that to be a rhetorical question, because something tells me we both know the answer.

What with the way things have been going, I can only imagine how badly that shot of mine might have backfired. Can you even picture it? I mean, good Lord. It’s no wonder I’m still single.

Then again, this began as a piece about mistakes. For any and all that I might make on my own, there exists a type that I try to rail against, to amend at all costs, and with a great, unyielding effort. To be plain, I am talking of those missteps related to grammar.

The spare typo or occasional misspelling aside, it seems as though many of us cannot go a day without fucking up the English language. This isn’t about switching up the order of “i” and “e,” whether after "c" or otherwise. Half the time, even I can’t remember where to place a period, be it before or after a quotation mark. For goodness sake, what's my excuse? I write for a living.

No, I’m reserving my ire for the stuff that truly irks me—for those errors plainly obvious and all too easy to avoid; for those moments when the very meaning of a word or a sentence is sent reeling, when all hints of rhyme or reason are shot directly out the window.

There are the usual suspects, the use of “there” or “their” when the context clearly calls for “they’re.” People these days; they are (or “they’re,” for those who insist on using the contraction) mixing up those words in all sorts of ways, bringing nouns and adjectives into play when all they really needed was a verb.

Regrettably, these blunders and boo-boos are typically the products of some very smart people. Even so, these mistakes, they happen quite a lot. (Not “alot,” mind you. That’s not a word, and never has been.) The question is: To whom does one allot the blame—if, in fact, one is able to find the fault at all?

Personally, I’m grateful for the knowledge I picked up back in Catholic school. So that we’re clear, I am not now, nor have I ever been, “greatful.” Of course, that didn’t stop me from finding the word, just this morning, on someone's Facebook page.

Actually, to be perfectly clear, “greatful” isn’t a word at all. If it were, no longer would the talk be of gratitude; instead, the message would be one of dimension. More to the point, as it concerns this so-called word, that particular misspelling would only alter (not “altar.” Those are saved for churches, or for use in pagan ceremonies) the root, thereby changing the meaning and intent.

Besides, I can’t imagine that any self-aware person, not to mention someone who was slightly self-conscious, would truly want a word around that could describe them as being, “filled with vastness, or mass, else all things enormous.”

I know I wouldn’t. Those skinny jeans look shit on me, as is.

Despite what nearly happened on the waterfront this morning, or yesterday, outside of Victoria’s Fifth Avenue location, the education that I received had more to do with working knowledge than it did with knickers or naughty thoughts. I guess my point is this: On Wednesday, I had a woman seemingly mistake my smile for a healthy dose of sleaze. What might have happened, had I opened my mouth or tried to slip the girl (easy there, Tiger) a note, only to find that the words would not come out right?

To put it another way, if we can’t say what we mean and mean what we say, then how smart can we really be?