"Those letters are just so close on the keyboard, you know..."

Yesterday I was working on my computer in the coffee shop downstairs when the middle-aged woman sitting in front of me stood up and started pacing back and forth in front of my table. Lord forbid a Minnesotan would ever just start a conversation unbidden. After being sufficiently distracting that she got me to make eye-contact, she said "Oh, goodness, excuse me--would you read my cover letter?"
This came a bit out of left field. She clearly thought I was a stranger, though we had in fact met before. Actually, she had driven me two hours to Duluth to catch a bus and still didn't recognize me, so I decided to relish the half-fact that, as a publishing intern, I radiated such professionalism and grammatical confidence that cover letter-bearing strangers were drawn to my very presence. The woman was applying to teach mathematics at the community college. Now, I am not a crackerjack speller. I always have a very difficult time spelling eighth, for example. I rely heavily on Spell Check. But I was able to spot where she had typed A instead of S so that one of her sentences read:

"As a longtime math tutor, I have developed many of my own teats."

Reader, I betrayed my immaturity. I laughed myself to conniptions in the middle of the coffee shop. I had tears all over my keyboard and I pulled a muscle in my abdomen. Fortunately, Minnesotans have a great ability to laugh at themselves. The woman had a good laugh, I helped her finish her cover letter, and she invited me to go canoeing, because why not?

Overheard in the Ely community college library

Student explaining the thesis of his upcoming paper to a friend:
"Our U.S. constitution protects its citizens, not some little Chinaman in, frikkin', China."

Guns out Fun's out

Unwinding with friends. And guns.