My Cringeworthy Typo Blunder by Scarlett Knight |

I don’t know about you, but the world seems to be getting pretty (insert your favorite colorful word here) intense. While I like to stay informed, I also like to laugh to deal with stress. And, I need some chuckles these days.

Today, the wonderful Scarlett Knight is here to help us laugh with an embarrassing story. Also, Scarlett is giving away ecopies of The Neon Fishnets Series. Below the guest post, you’ll find more details about the giveaway.

Take it away, Scarlett.

My Cringeworthy Typo Blunder

Over a decade ago, I worked for a couple of years as a high school English teacher, which was as challenging a job as it was rewarding. I was in charge of educating the rowdy but loveable 9^th graders. Each day brought new enlightenment to my life. As much as I taught the teenagers, I was constantly learning, myself.

Take for example the pronoun worksheet. It wasn’t part of the required curriculum; however, my students were showing a need to learn the information, so I put together a worksheet on pronouns from scratch. I remember being dog tired that evening when I typed up the different sections of the mini-lesson on my laptop at home. At the top of the page was a lesson on first person pronouns, then one on second person pronouns, and at the bottom of the page, one on third person pronouns. I gave examples and discussed how and when they were used. Yawning, I saved the document and printed it out. I’d make the 125+ copies up at school using the heavy-duty printer in the morning.

The next day, with my freshly printed stack of copies, I entered the classroom, ready to present this information that I’d proudly added to our daily lesson. I was surprised to find that my students were acting unusually well-behaved. Would this be one of those rare days that I would be able to get through to them? To begin the day teaching without classroom management drama? Who was I to question the small blessings in life? I handed out the worksheet to each row, and the students passed them to the person behind them until all worksheets were dispersed. I took my place at the front of the class, feeling really good about the day’s good-mannered vibe. Little did I know, there would be a classroom disruption after all, and it would come in the form of my worksheet.

I had the students read along with me and repeat after me as I read. “First person pronouns: I, me, we.” They parroted obediently, and I continued on with the lesson, going through each line until I got to the section on third person pronouns.

The worksheet should have read “he, she, and it.” Unknown to me at that point, I had accidentally created a typo and had added an extra “sh” to the beginning of the word “it.” This created an entirely new word…

And I didn’t realize it until I, along with the entire class, set eyes on the innocent pronoun-turned-curse-word. I stopped dead cold before pronouncing it for all to hear.

“Oh, no,” I muttered.

I sensed the shift in energy in the room almost immediately. Some students started to snicker. Others proudly went ahead and read the typo aloud. Others got really quiet, perhaps feeling the mortification that was radiating from me.

“Sorry, that was a typo,” I said calmly, my face hot as I tried to hide my embarrassment and do damage control before I lost their focus. “Please change that. Just take a pen and change that word to the word ‘it.’”

So much for my well-behaved class. After that, I was hard-pressed to harness their full attention like I’d had at the beginning of class. Before moving forward with the lesson any further, I grabbed the stack of worksheets that would go to the other class periods later, and instructed my teacher’s aide to go back and scribble out the typo. While he did as told (grinning a sly grin), I did my best to keep a straight face and professionally continue on with the activity as I inwardly kicked myself.

Moral of the story? Always double check your work, especially if you’re working with teenagers! Lucky for me, my students and I had good enough rapport that they didn’t make a big deal of it. But you can bet that I never made that mistake again on any future worksheets!

GIVEAWAY

BREAKING THE CHAINS
The Neon Fishnets: Book 2

by Scarlett Knight

Available in Kindle Unlimited

The Neon Fishnets’ lead guitarist, Raina Emerson, returns home from rehab a changed woman. Embarking on rock star life as a clean and sober musician isn’t easy, especially since Raina has been the band’s notorious party girl for the past decade, but she is totally up for the challenge. With a new album topping the charts, a tour coming up, and her band mates providing their love and support, everything is moving along perfectly.

That is, until a different kind of temptation enters her life in the form of a beautiful woman named Lara Thompson. Complicating things even further is the fact that Raina and Lara have a history, a shared dark past that Raina isn’t ready to confront.

Possible trigger warning includes dealing with grief over the long-ago tragic death of a friend.

	

						
												
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MEET THE AUTHOR

Scarlett Knight is a Texas native who enjoys being creative in a number of ways besides writing, including taking amateur nature photos with her iPhone at nearby parks, listening to movie soundtracks while coloring in her adult coloring books, and happily wandering around the local Dallas/Fort Worth art museums. She also has a passion for de-cluttering and organizing, but she also loves letting loose at live concerts of all musical genres. She loves to travel, both around Texas and also to far away cities and countries for new adventures. A shameless foodie, she spends her weekends wining and dining at her favorite restaurants and delights in discovering new places to eat. Last but not least, she is the proud mom to a senior dachshund, which will always and forever be her special fur-baby.