The Great Typo Hunt_ Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time - Jeff Deck [17]
We enjoyed an incredibly good meal, I treated, and we departed, but not before Benjamin made one last change. Thanks to his inquiry, we now knew that a single coloring contest took place. I handed him the elixir and got my camera ready, and we rolled out according to plan, Benjamin leading our procession and pausing, as Jenny and I passed slowly between him and any probing eyes. He struck with a quick splash of the elixir and took Jenny’s arm, leaving me to flash a picture and scurry out the double doors after them.
We triumphant three strode out into the parking lot, cool as cantaloupes. My first successful venture with my new typo-hunting ally Benjamin. I felt suave and in control, action-movie cool, except that I couldn’t figure out how to walk in slow motion.
Filene’s Basement awaited across the parking lot, and there all my illusions of urbanity shattered. We seemed underdressed for the store. Our T-shirts and jeans stood out against the garb of customers and employees alike. The man who approached us noticed it, judging by the downward turn of his mouth, but Benjamin snapped, “Your boxed ties, please?” I realized the object of my objection occurred in a word that, bad punctuation aside, was also completely unnecessary. It’s not as if there were a separate station for women’s boxed ties.
The well-dressed employee escorted us down an aisle to a fixture that looked familiar. Benjamin gave our thanks with a sharp nod, letting the man know that his assistance was no longer required. Benjamin’s whole manner seemed to suggest that he was often, in fact, overdressed for such a store, but that this was merely his Sunday off and no one had better question it. For the first time it occurred to me what an asset it was to have a retail employee on my side. He’d seen all the customer types often enough that he could mask himself with any attitude to match the moment, and so much of the typo-finding realm would overlap with his familiar turf. Benjamin was striding into the echoing ivory halls of typo-hunting with gusto. I took it as a promising omen for this leg of the trip.
“Précisement,” Jenny declared, channeling Hercule Poirot as she gestured toward the offending sign. She and Benjamin cuddled together, delighted at how they’d sleuthed the cause of one of my earliest finds. Not merely the same error, but the same sign. These errors had been run off en masse. I twisted around to check for another problem, sighted it, and this time snapped better photos of what I’d failed to adequately record a few hundred miles north. MENS’ BOXED TIES. And above us, MENS CONTEMPORARY.
Adding to my sense of déjà vu, Benjamin said, “Since men is already plural, the s can only declare that it’s possessive; therefore an apostrophe is strikingly absent.”
Declare? Therefore? Strikingly? I wondered how much longer he’d be wearing his snootier-than-thou persona, as much as I’d appreciated it. “See, dude,” he said, and I sighed with relief that I wouldn’t have to poke him in the coconut after all, “there’s no use trying to correct this apostrophe here, and it wouldn’t have helped to confront anyone in Boston either.”
I stood shocked. They had casually removed the dark stain of cowardice from my first day’s hunt and washed it clean so that, in hindsight, my deeds shone pure, giving off an aura of discretion. Jenny drove the point home: “We’d have to call their corporate office. See, the employees could even get in trouble for taking signs down or fixing a mistake if their district manager failed to understand. Their merch people are supposed to put up the signs they’re told to, no questions asked.”
Though Benjamin and I resolved to call the Filene’s Basement corporate headquarters at the close of the trip, we never got the chance