The Great Typo Hunt_ Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time - Jeff Deck [87]
Reader, I would like nothing more than to spring immediately into the story of my triumphal return to New England: first our brief alighting in Hanover, where my friendship with Benjamin was forged, and then further backward in time to my hometown and a stay with my mother. The multifarious wonders that Benjamin and I encountered shall be related in due time, but I fear that before every dawn come the primordial frights of deepest night. The deeds done in Manchester, and the wisdom won there, cannot be complete without an account of important events preceding them. Had I my druthers, I would not speak of Albany at all, but the truth of the Tulip Festival must out. I plead with you to conceal the following episode from your children, until they’ve passed the age of nightmares and can understand the virulent course that world events too often take. Further, I bid you steel yourself against the horrors I am compelled to describe, for you shall bear witness—in as brief and muted fashion as I can manage!—to the hoary, pustuled flank of iniquity. For in Albany I faced the worst day of typo correcting I would ever experience, and I pray that none of us ever sees its like again.
As we pulled up to the curb at my uncle and aunt’s place, we discovered that Uncle Bill had been waiting for us, seated out on the lawn playing with his dog Harley. He sported a bright yellow TEAL shirt, the first I’d seen in action since I set up the store online. Harley, too, was ready; the clever black Labrador bounded up to us, a favorite stick clamped in his mouth. Not to be outdone by husband or dog, Aunt Kristen appeared with a hug and a big tip: down the road in Washington Park, Albany’s annual rite of spring, the Tulip Festival, romped and rollicked, much like Benjamin upon meeting Harley.
Finding a parking spot down near the festivities proved to be a trial that required advanced skill checks in Patience, Navigation, Creativity, and Eyesight. “Everybody remember where we parked,” Benjamin remarked as we set off down the long road to the festival, which teemed with people celebrating the heritage of the oldest Dutch settlement in the country. Booths of assorted arts and crafts lined the dirt paths, and at the paths’ intersection stood a cluster of food wagons. We merged into the masses and began to visit the little tents, which ranged from mundane trinkets to some inspired pieces of art or its close facsimile. Oh, and gifts and treats galore. Candles and chocolate and perfumes and potions. And typos. Yes, we’d come to a swollen canal of errors, and now needed only to unplug the dike.
It began at the candy stand, with a tough one. They were selling chocolates called “non-pariels,” which I pointed out to the attendant should actually be nonpareils (from the French word meaning “unequaled” or “peerless,” testifying to the candy’s excellence). He nodded quickly, somewhat busy with sweet-toothed Albanians. I didn’t believe he’d do anything about it, but I also didn’t want to make him drop a sale, so we moved onward. Already I worried that if everyone was working in high gear, trying to fit as many sales as possible into the fleeting window of the festival, we’d seem more intrusive than usual. The first incident had been candy, though, always a sure sales bet, and the next tent where we spotted an error didn’t have the same feel. Here a few people browsed the paintings for sale, but no one was ready to actually purchase anything. One lady actively introduced herself to people while a large tattooed guy—the one in charge?—reclined in a seat at the back corner of the tent.
A laminated sign advertised that pet-centered art had been created by an “internationally renown artist” who shall go unnamed, lest the source of her renown become reknown. When the woman didn’t seem occupied with anyone else, I casually caught her attention, but upon mentioning the word renown, the tattooed man broke in, anticipating my objection. “That’s spelled right.”
The woman wandered away without having spoken a word. Clearly she didn’t want to be in the conversation