There have been plenty of times, I’m certain, that my autocorrect has saved my ass. But lately I’ve only been finding fault in its flaws. I’m pretty sure it was sensing my lack of appreciation and decided to help me see the err of my ways. It probably felt like my mom did the time she emptied my dirty clothes basket onto my bed, and left it there for me to wonder how I was going to have clean clothes for school the next day. Well played, mom. Well played.
Yesterday morning, autocorrect got all judgey on me and decided that my potty mouth was unacceptable. It continually corrected “dickbrain” to “dick rain.” Which, in retrospect has great possibilities in its own merit. But determined it was going to be DICKBRAIN, I had to type it in THREE times, and tap the fucking x-box to make it STOP. changing. my. WORDS. I was frustrated and immediately changed my settings. And at that moment, autocorrect and I broke up.
Later my daughter’s coach sent me a text telling me that they had a game. I promptly replied with, “I’ll bring her vag later.” Having dumped autocorrect earlier, “vag” remained “vag,” rather than being mercifully and silently changed to “bag.” Autocorrect karma. Well played, autocorrect. Well played. I noted the mistake as the send-bar moved in slow motion. I heard myself shouting, “STOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP,” in that monstery-sounding, slow-motion voice. It felt as though it took several minutes for it to send, with me shouting at my phone, trying to will the text from sending. Or hoping for a complete crash of the L.A. Metro area cell service, just to save my ass. And then… it was done. Sent. Unsuccessful in halting the mortifyingly hysterical typo, I sat for a moment, deciding my recovery…
“Um. Never mind. I forgot. She actually keeps that with her. But she needs her bag. I’m bringing it over.”
I immediately turned autocorrect back on.
