Proofreader

A friend of mine, previously mentioned on this blog here in story about rubbing shoulders with the famous, has gotten a new part-time job that might bring minor fame to her.

At least as much notice as substituting for the TV traffic reporter on one of my local stations gets me, which, if that's the case, won't bring her much notice at all.

(I did get an e-mail from the operations director from our local traffic.com office today thanking me for filling in. He wrote that he gets compliments on my work whenever I'm on, which I take to mean that -- like my occasional colleagues at WTSP -- they're happily surprised that I appear to have worked in front of a TV camera before.)

But enough about me. This is about my perhaps soon-to-be pseudo famous friend, who says she likes to read about herself on my blog so I'm not telling tales out of school here. A month or so ago she told me that she was taking jazz dancing lessons. Interesting hobby, I thought. Then she explained that she intended to audition to become a cheerleader for the Washington Redskins.

I heard nothing more about it for a few weeks. Then a one line e-mail: "My audition is tonight and I am so BLOATED!" I wrote back, assuring her that regardless of her bloatitude she would do fine. A day or so later she replied: "You were right. I got it!" Of course I was right. I usually am when the matter doesn't involve a decision about my own life. Or spelling.

My realm of expertise includes knowing how to use an apostrophe so she calls on me to edit articles she writes as a PR flak for a DC lobby group. The latest call came yesterday. "Your help," the subject line of the e-mail read. The body of the e-mail had one line about how it needs tightening up. She was not talking about a mishap while doing the splits at cheerleading practice. She was talking about the verbiage in the Word document attached to the e-mail.

Lucky for her the grammar surgeon here can do her job and mine at the same time. Glad I didn't wear good clothes, I thought. This could get messy. I performed the required syntactical triage in between tasks someone actually pays me for and returned her article with suggested corrections and re-writes.

Today she writes: "Thanks John, I'll rework your suggestions. That my friend, will get you an autographed photo me in my WRC outfit! Well, you would've gotten one anyway but THANK YOU! :)"

And that brings us to the reason (the reason besides that she's my friend and a total babe to boot) that I do this stuff for her. The thanks? The picture of her in the cheerleading suit? No. The material.

I reply:

Are you going to sign the autograph yourself or will it be an autograph printed on the picture like the ones of President Bush my mother gets when she gives money to the Republicans?

I'm thinking a genuine autograph will bring a lot more on e-Bay when you become a big shot on the Hill.

(What? Didn't like that joke? That was Joke B. Joke A was how your really good friends got the picture of you WITHOUT the WRC outfit on.)

She hasn't written back. She will. At some point she's going to need another article edited.