The Texas Department of Transportaion issues the toll tags.
I don’t think of romance when I think of TxDOT.
I know, Valentine’s Day is coming up.
But that still doesn’t equate TxDOT with a hot date.
Yeah, nah, I’m not going to follow those instructions.
It doesn’t sound romantic at all.
In fact, it sounds like the exact opposite of a hot date
Since there’s no possibility of chocolate or flowers, and it’s a sure bet that there will be no sizzling hot date, I’m just going to ignore the whole thing.
To this day, I can’t figure out the difference between affect and effect.
I know, I could use the RAVEN trick.
Remember that Affect is a Verb and Effect is a Noun.
Except, of course, that sometimes affect is a noun and sometimes effect is a verb.
Ugh.
I just can’t.
My workaround is to simply find another way to say it.
I’ll go to huge lengths to avoid using these words.
There’s always another word.
And so it is with the idiom “put the pedal to the metal.”
Is it pedal or petal or peddle?
Is it medal or metal or meddle?
The correct idiom – put the pedal to the metal – is a car reference, indicating that you should push the gas pedal all the way down to the floorboard in order to go as fast as you can.
If you can’t figure out how to write it correctly, find another idiom.
There’s always another idiom.
Try using “B*lls to the wall.”
It’s an aviation reference, and it means the same thing.
For example, with my beginning ESL students, I don’t try to cram the entirety of the English language into that first lesson.
I teach them how to say hello.
By the second class, we can all greet each other.
Success!
With that first accomplishment comes confidence, and with confidence comes success in the next thing, and then the next and then the next.
It’s the opposite of the snowball effect.
The snowball effect is a negative concept.
Something bad happens which creates another bad thing which creates yet another bad thing until the situation snowballs into a complete sh**show.
The opposite of that is when something good happens which creates the confidence to create another good thing which in turn creates another good thing.
Somebody should invent a word for this because it’s a real thing.
It’s how I teach.
One success at a time.
My students LOVE my classes.
And they are growing and developing their skills.
I teach English Language Arts to K-12.
I teach creative writing, ESL, and Public Speaking to adults.
Why, why, WHY is the car designed with enough room to dump the entire contents of your refrigerator between the seat and the center console, but not enough room to put your hand down there to pick the stuff up?
I didn’t even see what fell.
But I knew that I had to retrieve it because one day soon I might be stuck in a situation where a much-needed item wouldn’t be at hand when necessary.
I reached down to fish it out, whatever it might be.
Just like the roach motel, I checked in.
But I couldn’t check out.
My hand was stuck.
Firmly stuck.
A metal rod was wedged into my forearm, pinning it down.
I couldn’t move.
I had the brilliant idea to move the seat backward to release my hand.
But I couldn’t reach the seat adjustment knob.
Because my arm was pinned down.
I immediately thought of that book, Mrs. Bridge, when India Bridge’s car stalled halfway out of the garage, and she was stuck, unable to open the door in the freezing winter weather.
Of course, in her day, she didn’t have a cell phone available to her.
I started to laugh, imagining my call to 911.
Our garage is small, and parking is tight on both sides.
There’s no way the fire department could fit in here to help me.
They would have to knock down some walls and use the jaws of life to free my hand.
Yeah, nah, that’s a big nope.
I’ll figure this out by myself.
Even if it kills me.
And it might.
Well maybe not kill, but certainly maim, or, possibly, dismember.
Eventually, with a lot of painful effort, and perhaps a few unconfirmed F-bombs, I finally freed my hand.
I’m going to have a bruise.
It turned out that what I had dropped was some chapstick.
Seriously?
All of this grief, potential humiliation, and possible jaws-of-life property damage for a chapstick?
Somebody has GOT to come up with a better design for that center console gap.
