This is a view of the instructions I found on a gas pump earlier today.  I don’t find this stuff, it finds me.  I mean that.  I’ve always had an ability (or curse, depending on who you ask) of noticing every single minor error in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and pronunciation.  I used to be an asshole and always feel the need to childishly mock those who used “their” instead of “there”.  But over time, I’ve come to deal with my affliction by shutting the fuck up about it.  No one wants to be reminded for the 287th time in their lives that it’s “I” before “E” except after “C”.

I do get a kick out of signs for businesses, churches, and local establishments that have any sort of error in them.  There are mistakes everywhere.  Just recently, there was a new CVS opening close by with a professional-looking printed sign out front that said “Pharmcy Open”.  Pharmcy?  Where’s the “a”?  I will never buy my drugs from a store that may mistake “oxycontin” for “oxytocin”.  Close in spelling, but two very different drugs.  If I’m in pain, the last thing I need is something to induce contractions in a pregnancy that, I assure you, I don’t have.

Church signs that are misspelled, or poorly worded, make me laugh the hardest, especially when they’re full of sexual innuendos.  I’m sorry, but when I see a sign that says something to the effect of “Allow Jesus to come inside you”, that shit is funny.  I once saw a sign reminding me to “Prase Jesus” instead of “Praise Jesus”.  I wanted to pull in and ask the church staff what “prase” means?  To me, it sounds like a French cooking term like “julienne” or “chiffonade”.  If “prase” is a French cooking term, I’m sure it’s delicious.  To “prase” Jesus does sound a little sacrilegious though.

So I pulled in to fill up and saw this sign on the gas pump.  There are a number of aspects to this that semi-fascinate me.  First, this was typed as one run-on sentence.  How did that happen?  How can someone, with at least a working knowledge of sentence structure and punctuation, type this and not notice?  All the person would have had to do is read it back to themselves just once to know that there are two very distinct sentences here.

Second, someone actually took the time to correct this by putting a period at the end of the first sentence and capitalizing the beginning of the next sentence.  Someone either had a pen on them, or went to get a pen, so they could make sure to correct the run-on sentence.  I love whoever did this.  I also love when this person does the same thing to misspelled graffiti on public bathroom walls.  All guys know exactly what I’m talking about.  There will be some words of wisdom on the urinal wall, something like “Jenny H. has masive tits” and you can see where someone has crossed out “masive” and correctly wrote “massive” right above it.  Love that.

Third, I desperately want to believe that a little old Hispanic women wrote this sign. Read it again to yourself, but, in your head, do it with a old-school female Hispanic accent. It fits perfectly. Picture the character Consuela from Family Guy. If she wrote this, I would verify that it was written without errors.

Finally, every word is actually spelled correctly.  Not that any of the words can really be misspelled, but let’s give a credit where a credit is due.

Here what the sign should say: “Please use your card as ‘Credit’.  The pump no longer accepts Debit cards.  Thank you.”  But then I’d have nothing to write about.