Tuesday, February 26, 2008

my obsession with grammar kills another potential friendship

I met new my hometeaching companion yesterday. Brother Wolf is his name. I think we may have started our companionship off on the wrong foot. Retrospectively, I can see that the blame for our initial awkwardness could be attributed to the combination of my obsession with grammar and my overactive curiosity gland. Here’s how it went down:

Bro. Wolf: “Hey are you Brother Hardison?”
Me: “Sure am.”
Bro Wolf: “Great. I’m Dave Wolf. I guess we’re home teaching companions.”
Me: “Oh, awesome.”
Bro Wolf: “Yeah, so do you think you’d be available to go home teaching tonight?”
Me: “Yeah. Tonight would be good. Hey, I have a question about your last name . . .”
Bro. Wolf: “Yeah . . .”
Me: “How do you pluralize it? Because when I refer to my family I just throw an ‘s’ on the end of our name and keep right on rolling with my sentence. You know, ‘We’re the Hardisons.’ Boom. Done and done. But that wouldn’t work for your family ‘cus that would make you guys ‘the Wolfs’ and that’s downright offensive (grammatically speaking, of course).”
Bro. Wolf: “Umm . . .”
Me: “So, I suppose if you want to tread the grammatically traditional route you could swap the ‘f’ for a ‘v’ and then attach ‘es.’ That’d make you guys ‘the Wolves.’ And not only does that appease the grammar gods, but it makes your family seem pretty darn tough.”
Bro. Wolf: [blank stare]
Me: “But then again, if it’s toughness you’re after, maybe just avoid the whole mess and call yourselves “the Pack.” I tried to implement that in our family, but ‘the Hardison Pack’ just doesn’t roll off the tongue like ‘the Wolf Pack”, you know?”
Bro. Wolf: “So you think 7:30 would work for you?”
Me: “Umm, 7:30 should be fine.”

7 comments:

ryan hoffman photography said...

I love it. It belongs in a movie.

Lindsey Kilpatrick said...

Bro, you are so funny. I think you and Kenny should have tried out for Last Comic Standing.

angela hardison said...

I need the candy bar posts to start coming.

Unknown said...

clint. i was on my mission in georgia and met a guy at church named Brother Foot. You don't know the pain that family caused me when I had to grin and bear calling them "the Foots." I had to think so hard about it every time, and it sounds so wrong.. it's harder for me to do than patting my head and rubbing my stomach.

mad white woman said...

awkward.

TEN said...

This post truly defines the idea of "lol".

Ric Thomas Pearse said...

Hahaha!!! It really feels great laughing again like this. It's pretty humorous (no offense to Bro. Wolf).

Try to control it a little bit, with discretion.

Cheers! :))